WEYMOUTH boss Mark Molesley conceded the Terras were “below-par” in their 2-2 FA Trophy second round draw at Ramsbottom United, but vowed to “finish the job” in tomorrow’s replay.
Iyrwah Gooden scored in the 95th minute to force a replay after the Rams had gone 2-1 behind when Nic Evangelinos’ strike was sandwiched between Jake McCarthy and Calvin Brooks goals.
Echosport understands there was a possibility the replay may not go ahead with Ramsbottom facing a 270-mile trip to Dorset – mirroring the situation that caused Needham Market to withdraw from their first-round clash with the Terras.
However, that is now unlikely and the scheduled home fixture with Met Police will be postponed.
Speaking after the game, Molesley was frustrated with the Weymouth performance, emphasising that the draw could have been avoided.
He said: “It always makes for a little bit more fixture congestion. We’ve put ourselves in this mess and we need to get ourselves out of it.
“We want to progress in the competition and we need to go and finish the job off.
“I thought we were below-par but we were in the ascendancy, always in the lead.
“We were pegged back, then went in the lead again and unfortunately conceded with the last kick of the game almost.
“They literally threw everyone in the box, there was a bit of pinball, a bit of a melee and they forced it home.
“Fair play to them, they made it a real difficult afternoon for us, they didn’t give us much time to settle.
“We weren’t quite at our best and they played well. Fortunately, the good news is we live to fight another day and get another go at it.”
Asked if Weymouth did enough during the game to go through, Molesley said: “Yes, on chances.
“We were ahead and I don’t think we gave up too many chances and we didn’t quite take the chances when we made them.
“You always leave yourselves vulnerable to that sucker punch and that happened, so we’re obviously disappointed.
“Yes, we did do enough to win the game but we didn’t play well enough to satisfy our own agenda.”
With Weymouth having travelled up on the Friday, Molesley dismissed any notion of the journey having an impact on his side.
He said: “We prepared as professionally as we could. We travelled up, stayed at the hotel, had pre-match food, had them scouted.
“We did all of our usual stuff, so no excuses our end. No stone was unturned, we came here to win the game of football.
“We felt we did enough to win the game without setting the world alight. We need to learn some valuable lessons, and quickly.”
