Speaking to Boro Player after the 2-2 draw at Tranmere, Graham Westley was left to rue the early injury to Chris Beardsley but said in time this could be a good point to earn on the road.
He told us, “When we had our starting XI on the pitch we looked strong, we looked solid, we looked organised. It was almost back to the Stevenage of old, dominating the game, controlling the game.
"Obviously we were disappointed to lose Beardo because we wanted to play with two up front and had no natural striking option on the bench that we could use. But I thought Beardo and Barnard gave them problems early on, they took our game forward intelligently and in the right way and in the right areas, exposed the weaknesses that we knew they had at the back.
“It was a shame to lose Beardo and then our shape had to change and it was then a shame to lose Ashton as well. I’m sure anybody who’s watching us will know that if Ashton was on the pitch that header gets won at the end and we win 2-1 anyway.”
After taking a first half lead through an own goal, Stevenage doubled their lead against the run of play, something GW was happy to agree with: "Their (Tranmere’s) game was coming forward in the second half. They had the big home crowd, they got themselves up, new manager, players in on loan, they had a lot of aerial threat amd threw a lot in our box. It got us on the back foot.
“We knew putting Simon (Walton) on was a risk, I thought he maybe had 45-50 minutes in him. I planned to change him but obviously the injuries meant that I couldn’t, so we lost a little bit of legs in the middle of the park. Power became quite influential and they managed to get on top of us, but we looked like seeing it out.
“In the end, when all is said and done, Tranmere is not an easy place to come to. They’ve got a decent home crowd, they’ve got that big Kop stand, they suck the game onto them and it’s a passionate footballing heartland.
"I’m sure they won’t be down the bottom of this league for very long and in time we might look back at it and think that was a hard, well-earned point up there.
For the full interview with the manager, in which he discusses injury time at the end of the game, including the dismissal of Dino Maamria, login to your Boro Player account now.