Wrexham hat-trick hero Paul Mullin offers much more than goals – Phil Parkinson

Posted Sunday, November 26, 2023 by PA

Phil Parkinson was just as pleased with Paul Mullin’s all-round performance as he was with the striker’s hat-trick in Wrexham’s 6-0 League Two demolition of Morecambe.

Joel Senior’s own-goal and Mullin’s first strike put Wrexham two ahead early on. Jacob Mendy also struck before half-time, while Mullin scored twice after the break and James Jones completed the emphatic rout.

The win sees the Dragons return to the automatic promotion spots and bounce back from defeat at Accrington, with Mullin now on eight goals for the season.

Parkinson said: “He was good, I thought his all-round link play and his runs were really good. It was a really good display, getting a hat-trick.

“Goals are so important and key moments in games to take chances and the fourth goal really does kill the game off. But I’m just as pleased with his all-round performance.

“It’s a great response to losing last week and some fantastic goals and there were other opportunities in the game.

“We knew Morecambe have had some good results recently, they beat Lincoln in the cup and they’re a dangerous counter-attacking team. They’ve got some good quality, but I thought we dealt with that side of it well.

“But equally we knew they’re a team where if we pass the ball with quality, we could punish them and we did that.

“We took our chances and we were clinical, got off to a great start and it’s a good day’s work for us.”

Morecambe caretaker boss Ged Brannan – who has applied to be Derek Adams’ successor – admitted the heavy defeat left him feeling “physically sick” as he did not defend the Shrimps’ showing.

He said: “We had a gameplan, all week trained really well, told them how to manage the game and not to concede early doors, especially away against a team that’s been absolutely flying.

“The gameplan was quieten the crowd and then start playing, stay in the game – and we gave two goals away in six minutes. Game over.

“I’m not going to defend us today, we never tracked runners, we never marked in the box, we never won our headers, never won the first or second contacts.

“We never done anything right defensively. We had a lot of possession and nice one-twos around the pitch, but it’s done nothing for us. Nothing at all.

“I feel physically sick. I’ve applied for the job and that’s not going to help me at all. I feel really sick, but we’ve got to go again. We’ve got a big game on Tuesday so we’ve got to be positive.”