Carlisle United Reaction - United

Last updated : 06 May 2008 By Bournemouth Co-Ordinator
Speaking after the match, the United boss, John Ward is quoted as saying: "I think that this was a good game, the occasion was there, they had to win, we wanted to win. It was that type of football, I don't think that either of us played our best but you can't fault the effort. Particularly we lifted the second-half up ourselves, and said that if we can't win with good football we've got to win with a big effort. I can't ask any more, it is the last game, but when you look at your 46 games, although I've not been here for all of them, it's a fantastic effort from this football club to be looking to go and play Leeds United in the play-offs.

" I've got a very disappointed dressing-room after the match when we've gone in. Then we have come back out and the ground has stayed pretty full to applaud the efforts of the team over the season, I have to say that is a massive lift for this group of players. So we were really, really pleased that the supporters felt that way, and saw the bigger picture and let me know that they feel that they have got a team to be proud of. We can't win every game, and we've tried very hard to do that, but they wear the shirt with a bit of pride and so do those supporters, and that's really important.

" I don't think the players will need any firing up against Leeds United, we go in there as the underdogs, they will be the favourites. We'll probably let them do the bit of chit-chat that they want to do, we know that we have got it all to do to beat them. It's a big football club, and if you need a lift then that sort of game gives you that. We'll look forward to it, we'll try to give them a game and we'll see if over two games we can beat them. There are going to be two full houses, and everybody is going to excited about it, so there is a lot more to look forward to. It will be tough for us but we'll try our very best as we always do.

"At half-time we are pleased that it is 0-0 because we knew that we could play better, we weren't sure that Bournemouth could but we did lift our game and push the game back into Bournemouth's half of the pitch. We found ourselves in front, just a soft goal that we have let in, I'm disappointed with the way that we have conceded the free-kick. It looks so simple, but we'll have a look at it and see if we can improve on that
".