Kieran Scarff urges Peterborough to improve despite late win over Stevenage

Posted Saturday, October 05, 2024 by PA

Assistant manager Kieran Scarff admitted Peterborough’s performance in their last-gasp 2-1 victory over Stevenage did not merit them earning all three points.

Despite opening the scoring early at London Road, Darren Ferguson’s side were second-best for long periods against the Boro, who were eventually made to pay for missing a host of chances.

The sucker punch came in the fourth minute of stoppage time when Posh top scorer Kwame Poku drove in his sixth goal of the season to snatch the hosts’ first win in four games.

Scarff said: “The result is always the most important thing and if you’re going to score a winner, I suppose scoring it that late on is always a nice feeling, but there are obviously plenty of things for us to look at.

“To be brutally honest, the performance levels weren’t what we wanted them to be, but credit to the players, they’ve dug in.

“They’ve dug in and they’ve found a way, and the result is always the most important thing, but we’re always looking to improve.

“We’ll look back on that and the players know the performance levels in the game, in terms of how we executed the game plan, wasn’t what we wanted it to be.

“We would fully expect at that point [going ahead early] to get control of the game, especially at home, but we felt the intensity in our play, certainly out of possession, wasn’t what we expected it to be.”

Peterborough went in front in the fifth minute when Donay O’Brien-Brady arrowed in his first senior goal, which was cancelled out by Louis Thompson’s excellent finish after 64 minutes.

The Boro had missed several opportunities by this point and they were left to rue those at the death when Poku shot through a crowd of bodies following Jack Sparkes’ corner.

Stevenage boss Alex Revell said: “I thought we were outstanding today with the ball, I thought we created so many chances and when you don’t take them, you leave the opposition always in with a chance.

“At the end there, unfortunately you know what football’s like sometimes, it can bite you on the bum.
“If you clear the ball, he [the referee] blows up [for full-time] and we didn’t do it well enough at the end.

“But that doesn’t take away from the performance and how well we played here today.

“We missed chances in the first half, their keeper has pulled off three really top saves, we should be scoring but we didn’t.

“We scored a fantastic goal and then there was only one team that was going to win, that team was us, but when you don’t take the opportunities, it can come back to haunt you.”