“The most boring game I’ve ever been involved in” was Joe Conneely’s frank assessment of Hinckley’s defeat at Wednesfield as he called on his side to show more quality.
Hinckley’s 1-0 defeat at a showery Cottage Ground was the first time this season they’ve failed to score, and it brought their four-match winning streak to an end.
But it was the manner of that defeat that disappointed the manager. His side failed to register a shot on target all 90 minutes and he says the game was an eye-opener.
“I want to forget it, but I also don’t. You sometimes want to move on, but not for me because it’s opened plenty of eyes to what we can be about. It was nowhere near good enough.
“It was boring. We didn’t have a shot on goal, didn’t test the ‘keeper once. We tried going a bit more direct because we thought that’s what the game would be, but it suited them more.
“We’re not getting enough out of our strikers, we’re not scoring goals. We’ve defended ok, but switched off from a free kick that should never have got there. It’s the same old story from last year, conceding bad goals from set pieces at key times.”
While he felt his side defended well on the whole, he lamented the goal Hinckley conceded with Wednesfield winning two headers in the box to score.
He said moments like that can make the difference come April and said his team need to stay focused during those situations.
“If the game is that bad, come and draw 0-0 and take a point and move on. But we didn’t deserve anything from the game. They didn’t do enough to win it either, but it was just a bad game of football. There will be more of them sadly because that’s what this league is about.
“We’ve tried to pick teams for home and away, because we’ve got a lovely 4G at home and then come to places like Wednesfield with a bobbly pitch. You try and pick your teams around that. But we’ve got to try and get our best technical players on the pitch.
“We’ve gone from being a free-flowing goalscoring team last year to not scoring many at all. We wouldn’t have scored if we played through until Tuesday, it was one of those games.”
