‘Responded magnificently’ – Worthing boss hails team for Horsham display
Chris Agutter hailed Worthing’s magnificent response to early troubles at Horsham that earned them their first win of the National South season – as he took his team to Farnborough looking for more of the same.
It looked bleak for the Rebels when they went 2-0 down within half an hour but Sam Beard and Temi Babalola levelled the score in the final minutes of the first half to change the game.
Worthing went on to lead 4-2 with a Jack Spong penalty and Sam Packham goal in the final 20 minutes before Horsham got a third in injury time. See match pictures by Jay Wrighte and John Lines here.
The entertaining win gave Agutter’s team four points out of six and set them up for tonight’s (Wed 20th) trip to Farnborough and a bank holiday double at home to Enfield on Saturday and away to Chippenham on Monday.
Agutter said: “We started really slowly. We expected a fast start from Horsham. We fell into a few traps – some tactical, some dark arts, which they’re good at.
"We got dragged into a scrappy game but responded magnificiently to get level by half-time. Then, and I know it’s easy to say, I was always pretty confident we could turn a drawing position into a winning position.
"Momentum’s a funny thing, it completely shifted in our favour. We said (at half-time) if they score three, we’ll score five, if they score four, we’ll try to score six. We’ll attack and fight fire with fire. The message was ‘let’s go for the throat, finish them off’.
"I felt we could inject even more quality and energy into the team from the bench and so it proved. It was disappointing to concede the third… that made the feeling at the end of the game a bit more nervy than what it was in reality.”
Agutter highlighted the input of the two Sams – Beard and Packham – saying their excellent form of pre-season had continued.
Beard is captain while Joel Colbran is suspended – he has one more game to sit out – and Agutter said of Beard: “He’s everything we want from a Worthing player.”
He also spoke of the importance of the whole squad: “For us to achieve anything this season, it’s going to take a squad of 20-plus players, not 11 players with three or four subs. It will be a team effort and that’s what it felt at Horsham.”