On his reaction to the midweek win:
“The bus ride back is always better with three points. That’s a good thing. The game itself was a bit of a strange game. I thought we started really slow, very conservative in our play. But, that being said, that field was difficult to play on and more so than it looked like even when we walked it the day before and during warmups. It just had so many different areas that were different. We really felt like some set-piece opportunities for us and for Penn were going to be important in that game and luckily, we finished the free kick opportunity from Frano [Shaun Francis] to Paolo [DelPiccolo] in a good position against the run of play. Second goal was beautiful from Niall [McCabe] and Jon [Lewis] did a good job turning the corner but Niall had so much work to do and obviously struck is beautifully.
“To finish out the half, I was a little frustrated with our performance. I thought we lacked focus and discipline and got distracted at times but in the second half we got better and managing the game and regrouped to finish things out the right way.”
On what the win means for him:
“It meant a lot because you look at only four days before on Saturday night, we were in the exact same situation. Up two goals, hadn’t given anything up, felt like we were in cruise control then the own goal comes, the penalty comes in the 90th minute, so we had literally just come from this exact same situation and look, we got a draw in Pittsburgh and that’s not a bad result but given the circumstances, we absolutely felt like we deserved three points and especially that late.
“Penn is a good team. They have some dangerous players and weapons so to get that result and in the fashion that we did, in particular playing down a man for the final 15-20 minutes, that was good.”
On the team receiving his style since the debut:
“I think both the team and I are still learning a lot about each other. Part of it is me coming into this league and the way that I want our team to play and the way that I asked them to play initially is counterintuitive to how sometimes you have to play in this league. In particular, in certain venues and ours included.”
On how he feels the group is coming together:
“You have to adjust your tactics and expectations sometimes. The players are still trying to adapt to things that they liked initially and that they wanted to continue in training, but it has to translate into games. It’s been a learning curve there as well but I’m happy with the progress we’ve made and I’m looking forward to the future.”
On what he wants to tweak with five games remaining:
“I think we can play out of the back much better than we have been. To be fair, we’re going to continue to do that on a game-by-game basis. For instance, last night and against Pittsburgh, there was no use in playing out of the back. We have to make sure that we recognize the appropriate factors and I think we’ve been doing a better job of that.
“I want us to be a team that can close games with possession and that’s something we have to do better. In our last two games, for sure. But in the previous five, we did an excellent job dictating our rhythm with the ball and we just need to get back to that a little bit.
“I’d also like to see our team collectively defending from start to finish. I’ve seen it in some games, I’ve seen it in long stretches, and yet we still have some moments where we really need to be better.”
