Cowley hails collective effort as Lincoln are crowned League Two champions

Posted Tuesday, April 23, 2019 by PA

Danny Cowley was left overjoyed after Lincoln did enough to secure the League Two title by drawing 0-0 with Tranmere at Sincil Bank.

Coupled with Mansfield’s defeat at Oldham, the point left the Imps eight points clear with two games remaining, earning a third trophy in three years in the process.

Cowley was quick to thank everyone afterwards who played a part in the season’s success.

“It’s been a whole city, whole county effort – everyone has contributed,” the Lincoln boss said.

“We have magnificent supporters here and we’re so happy we can give them days like this.

“As for the players, they have been brilliant from day dot in terms of their work ethic and their attitude. There’s no egos in the group and when you have a team like that you can achieve wonderful things.

“Ultimately today we were trying to win from the offset, but it became clear after about an hour that a point would be enough, so we made sure we did enough to see the game out.”

A relentless first half of attacking football from the home side prevented Rovers from barely getting out of their own half.

In doing so, Cowley’s men went on the front foot from the opening minute as Matt Rhead played Michael O’Connor through on goal, but he was denied by goalkeeper Scott Davies.

Bruno Andrade then latched on to Neal Eardley’s neat free kick, but he too was thwarted by Davies, whilst Rhead had a cool finish ruled out when perhaps the referee should have allowed Lincoln the advantage.

In a rare foray forward, meanwhile, Rovers’ James Norwood did manage to test Matt Gilks with a low volley, but the Imps’ goalkeeper saved well at his near post.

After the break the visitors enjoyed a decent spell of their own, only for Norwood to be denied by a brilliant Michael Bostwick challenge, before spurning another great chance after doing all the hard work himself.

At the other end ex-Imp Jake Caprice cleared Rhead’s goal-bound effort off the line, whilst Evan Gumbs made up for a mistake to prevent John Akinde a run on goal.

Rovers’ James Harris saw a neat finish ruled out for offside with 20 minutes to go, whilst Lincoln twice went close at the death only for Shay McCartan to volley straight at Davies and Mark O’Hara to scuff wide with the goal at his mercy.

Tranmere boss Micky Mellon thought his side had enough chances to win it.

“First half you have to give credit to Lincoln and say they were the better side,” he said.

“We re-jigged it at half time though and could have scored three or four – that’s being honest.

“It was a great game to be involved in and we’ll keep fighting away.”