Beesley praises character after point earned in tough conditions

Warrington Town manager Mark Beesley was pleased to come away from Atherton with a point in a game played in tough conditions.

The freezing weather and snowfall made it a difficult assignment for the Yellows, but they extended their unbeaten run to eight thanks to Isaac Buckley-Ricketts’ late equaliser.

The hosts had earlier taken the lead when Jay Fitzmartin’s corner found its way directly in, forcing the Yellows to come from behind to get their reward for a third game in succession.

Beesley said: “I think it’s a point gained. This is a tough place to come at the best of times. Brad is a good manager and he is savvy in what he does.

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“He gets them organised and I think the conditions suited them a little bit. They’re a tough team to play against, they get men behind the ball.

“I’ve got to give the lads a huge amount of credit for the way they kept going on that pitch, the ball wouldn’t roll properly, but they kept going. It was unfortunate the goal we conceded, straight from a corner we’ve got to be better on that, because I couldn’t see them scoring.

“When you come from behind in games, it shows good character and we’ve done that in the last three games. It shows we’ve got a bit of togetherness and character about us.

“We’ve seen throughout the season we can play really good stuff, but at times, especially at this time of the year, you’ve got to come to places where it’s not ideal, it’s not perfect and we’ve got to fight, and we’ve shown we can do that.”

Beesley brought Isaac Buckley-Ricketts and Luke Duffy back in to the starting line-up following the win away at Rylands at the weekend.

The Yellows were dealt with a blow on the stroke of half-time when Tom Hannigan went down with an ankle injury, and the knock eventually forced him off at the interval to be replaced by Mitch Duggan.

Stefan Mols and Jay Harris remained unused substitutes, as Jordan Buckley and Eddie Clarke came on off the bench in the second half.

Beesley added: “We’ve had three away games in a week and to come out unbeaten is a positive.

“We made a couple of changes to try and freshen things up and obviously Isaac come in and scored the equaliser, so it was good in that sense. We’ve got a small squad and we’ve got to be ready for each game.

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“Stef’s just a little victim of circumstance at the moment. I spoke to him at the weekend about it, he’s disappointed he’s not playing which is great, I don’t want lads not playing being happy. He knows he’s so important to us, he’s going to get opportunities moving forward.

“We’ve got a small squad, we’ve got to rotate, we’ve got another Tuesday game coming up in a few weeks so he’s got to be ready, and I know he is.

“I know he’s disappointed, maybe it wasn’t the pitch for him tonight, but he’s already played the same amount of games as he did in the whole of last year so that’s a big plus for him and he’s valuable to the squad.”

The Yellows are in action at Cantilever Park at home to Whitby Town on Saturday. Tickets are available to purchase online.

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