Bristol Rovers manager Matt Taylor praised Weston-super-Mare after the non-league side pushed the Pirates all the way before suffering a 3-1 defeat in their FA Cup first-round clash at the Memorial Stadium.
The League One outfit needed extra time to get past stubborn opposition from three tiers below, as the Seagulls showed why they are flying high in the National League South and had not lost for 16 matches prior to this game.
Jamie Lindsay’s first-half opener for Rovers was cancelled out by Jordan Bastin midway through the second half and the hosts were indebted to Connor Taylor’s 95th-minute goal and Grant Ward’s late clincher to see off their West Country neighbours.
“First of all, we’ve got to give credit to the opposition,” Taylor said. “Not just in terms of the way the game went to extra time, but the way they played, the way they pushed us back at certain moments and the way they kept on fighting.
“They had a constant platform at the top end of the pitch with their physicality. I think that’s a fair assessment of a way to get up the pitch and get us on the back foot and then the other real times the pitch was opened up, it was probably from our mistakes and our own undoing.”
Weston boss Scott Bartlett was proud of his team’s impressive performance and pointed out it was not a one-off, and not because of their more illustrious opposition.
“Today wasn’t anything that we haven’t seen in our league,” he said.
“Obviously it’s an incredible gap between the two clubs [55 places in the English football pyramid] but I thought our players did an incredible job to reduce that gap in quality.
“I thought we did well especially in that second half and we were worthy of our goal and when we need to we defended and we always had a threat going forward, which is what we’re all about. You only get one opportunity in a game like this.”
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