Derek Adams delighted after last-gasp win over Forest Green

Posted Sunday, September 18, 2022 by PA

Morecambe boss Derek Adams lauded his side after Farrend Rawson’s stoppage-time header against his former club Forest Green handed the Shrimps their first win of the season.

Connor Wickham’s moment of magic handed Rovers the lead on 30 minutes but on-loan Huddersfield striker Kieran Phillips levelled the game up on the cusp of the break before Rawson popped up at the death.

Adams beamed: “We obviously deserved it and dominated the game for large spells and should have been two goals up through Kieran Phillips and Donald Love.

“They scored against the run of play at that time but today, you saw two teams who are going to be (close) in the league table and today you saw two teams at it. Luke McGee has made 10 outstanding saves for Forest Green.

“This is a great day for the whole of Morecambe and we want to be in League One next season.”

Phillips’ mesmerising run on 19 minutes ended with the ball bouncing off the underside of the bar and into the gloves of McGee.

The game was crying out for a moment of quality and Wickham delivered it on 30 minutes, the former Crystal Palace and Everton striker scoring on the angle from 25 yards over the floundering Connor Ripley from Corey O’Keeffe’s assist.

Rawson and Phillips tested McGee before Phillips levelled with a minute of the first half to go.

McGee’s fingertip save from Cole Stockton’s fizzing strike and then Ripley’s block from Wickham made it an electric start to the second half. Ripley also denied Dom Bernard before Rawson pinched it for the Shrimps, nodding in from a 93rd-minute Jensen Weir free-kick which Rovers’ boss Ian Burchnall was adamant should not have been given.

“It was a bitter pill, disappointing to concede so late,” he said. “A point would have been suitable but we didn’t do enough to win the game.

“We should have defended the set-piece at the end, but it was never a free-kick for the final goal – not even close to being a free-kick, and it frustrates me at the end when Armani (Little) broke his nose with a bad challenge on him and we don’t get it the other way.

“After the decision, we’ve got to defend the set-piece much better.”