Dino Maamria: Stevenage coped well with bus debacle

Posted Thursday, December 27, 2018 by PA

Dino Maamria was pleased with the way his Stevenage players responded in adversity after they won 2-1 at promotion-chasing Colchester.

Boro arrived late after their team coach broke down on the way to the match, forcing kick-off to be delayed by 15 minutes.

But they went ahead when Ben Nugent’s fifth-minute header stuck a post and went in off Colchester goalkeeper Rene Gilmartin, following Joel Byrom’s free-kick into the area.

And Stevenage doubled their lead 10 minutes before half-time through Danny Newton, who converted from two yards after Kurtis Guthrie had headed Jamal Campbell-Ryce’s cross across goal.

Colchester skipper Luke Prosser bagged a consolation with seven minutes remaining, scoring from close range after Tom Eastman had headed on Brennan Dickenson’s corner, but Stevenage held out to claim a first away win since October.

Stevenage boss Maamria said: “We started later and we’ll do that again, because that was our best start to a game of the season.

“I think it’s the first time that we’ve scored in the first five minutes of the game.

“It was difficult – we got stuck about 45 minutes away and we had to get a taxi and all the rest of it.

“Credit to the players in adversity they stood up to it.

“There were reasons and excuses we could give but we found a reason to win the game and I thought we did fantastically well.

“We didn’t really speak about it, we just got on with it. If you want to make a big deal out of it you can but I wasn’t – it is what it is and you can only control what you control.

“Circumstances happen. We had prepared very well and you focus always on the game.”

Colchester dropped to fourth after the home loss, but head coach John McGreal was philosophical in defeat.

He said: “It was a frustrating afternoon result-wise but performance-wise I think we’re nearly there from how we’ve been playing of late.

“We gave ourselves a bit of a mountain to climb after going 2-0 down but we stuck to our guns.

“They scored quite early and their second goal was a bit of a killer. Their first goal was a bit unfortunate after it hit Rene and went in.

“We might have looked at their second goal for a foul but the referee has reffed how he feels he has to ref the game.

“We changed some things at half-time and tried to get something out of the game. We felt we needed a little bit of urgency in the second half, even though we felt we had dominated the first half.

“We had different attacks from different areas in the second half. We just wanted that earlier goal but it didn’t come.”