Farnham Town manager Paul Johnson was full of praise for his side after they extended their unbeaten run in the Combined Counties Premier Division South to eight games.
The Baggies were reduced to ten men after five minutes when Nick Medcraft was shown a straight red card, but the score remained 0-0 at half-time. Richie Mbele, Shamal Edwards and Bradley Kauzeni scored in the second half to give Town the three points, and Johnson was delighted.
“The message at half-time was not to get frustrated with it,” said Johnson.
“It’s so easy to get frustrated thinking you should dominate a game against ten men, but they set up well off the ball to try to frustrate us.
“We said it’s not a day for playing – we need to put that ball in and get that second ball when it lands.
“Then it will start opening up, and someone will step out and make a mistake. I thought that came off perfectly.
“I thought Richie was excellent all game – probably the best player on the pitch. We had some good players, but he was our stand-out.
“I don’t think we had anyone off it. Pat’s handling in goal was phenomenal – he didn’t drop one. In those conditions, I thought he was excellent.
“We want to be Badshot Lea next season – we want to be up there competing. We’ve still got two games to go, which we want to finish strongly in, and we’ve still got a cup – so we’ve got a lot to play for.
“We move on and we look at the next game straight away.”
Easter Monday’s victory followed Saturday’s 2-2 draw at home to Camberley Town in the Combined Counties Premier Division South.
Less than ten minutes later, Town were back level. Lewis Flatman made space down the right before pulling the ball back for Edwards to drill past the Camberley keeper.
Farnham went in front nine minutes later when a Luke Dunn cross found Lamar Koroma on the edge of the area. He took a touch before unleashing a powerful shot that took a deflection that left the keeper completely stranded.
The hosts looked on course for the three points, but Mason Taylor swivelled and volleyed home a fine equaliser from a corner in the 90th minute.
Johnson felt the draw was two points dropped.
“It’s disappointing, considering the referee gave them a corner which was never a corner, but we’ve still got to defend it better,” he said.
“We weren’t great in the second half – it was poor. It was our poor quality on the ball that made it scrappy. It gave them the chance to make it scrappy. We had a couple of chances, but we just draw a line under that one.
“We looked leggy. We’ve been the same 16 really for the past six or seven weeks, and it’s been pretty much the same 11. It looked like it was just catching up with us a little bit.
“We led for the majority of the game – we came from behind and turned it around pretty quickly. We can score goals and we know we’ll score, so we didn’t let going behind affect us – we bounced back well. It was a good move for the first goal. There are positives there. We didn’t lose, which is a good habit.
“Even when they scored the equaliser we looked like the team who were going to win.
“We had another good crowd, so it’s a shame the second half went the way it did.”
Next up for Farnham is a trip to Redhill in the Combined Counties Premier Division South on Saturday (3pm), and Johnson is targeting a strong end to the season.
“We played Redhill only last week, so it’s about complacency and not turning up there thinking we’ve won the game,” he said. “We’ve got to be switched on. They had dangerous players when we played them at home – we just took our chances.”