Eoin Doyle grabbed a deserved point for the Lilywhites and after the game manager Simon Grayson spoke of how pleased he was for the Irishman.
The No.13 grabbed the Gentry Day winner on his birthday and then celebrated St Patrick’s Day this week with another late goal; a perfectly positioned header into the bottom corner and afterwards the manager said he felt it was thoroughly deserved.
“Over the course of the game we played quite well,” said the gaffer. “We suffered the setback and that is the first time this season we have conceded in the first 15 or 20 minutes of a game, which takes some doing against the level of opposition we are against. It was a bit of a body blow to concede early, but we responded well, we got in some good areas and with a bit more care we could have asked a few more questions.
“We limited them to few opportunities and got balls into the box without really creating too many clear cut opportunities. We kept going, kept asking questions of them and key moments went our way. Anders made a fantastic one on one save and from then on we kept throwing everything at them and got our just rewards because I think we reserved it today.
“You always ask the question of the players coming on, whatever period of time you get, try and impact the game and I am really pleased for Doyler.
“He scored last week and has got the equaliser today. He has looked sharp over the last few weeks and it is nice to see him scoring the goals, which is the reason we brought him in. It will be a big boost for his confidence and his as well.”
He wasn’t the only impact substitute, with Jermaine Beckford returning from six months out and the PNE boss was delighted to have his striker back, although he will not be rushed into further action.
“It is a big boost to have him back and we had been looking at it for the last few days,” he added. “He has been training sporadically with us and he played an in house game on Tuesday for 50 minutes and looked okay.
“We only had six subs again, which made up our mind a little bit. I was never going to play him more than ten minutes as we are still easing him in, but it is nice to get him back.
“We thought it was a nice psychological boost for him and also for the supporters to have Jermaine back around it and it had that effect. I said to him ‘go and see what you can do’ and he had a bit of an altercation that livened things up!”
Click here to watch the full interview with the manager, plus hear from goalscorer Eoin Doyle by logging into PNE PlayerHD now.
“Over the course of the game we played quite well,” said the gaffer. “We suffered the setback and that is the first time this season we have conceded in the first 15 or 20 minutes of a game, which takes some doing against the level of opposition we are against. It was a bit of a body blow to concede early, but we responded well, we got in some good areas and with a bit more care we could have asked a few more questions.
“We limited them to few opportunities and got balls into the box without really creating too many clear cut opportunities. We kept going, kept asking questions of them and key moments went our way. Anders made a fantastic one on one save and from then on we kept throwing everything at them and got our just rewards because I think we reserved it today.
“You always ask the question of the players coming on, whatever period of time you get, try and impact the game and I am really pleased for Doyler.
“He scored last week and has got the equaliser today. He has looked sharp over the last few weeks and it is nice to see him scoring the goals, which is the reason we brought him in. It will be a big boost for his confidence and his as well.”
He wasn’t the only impact substitute, with Jermaine Beckford returning from six months out and the PNE boss was delighted to have his striker back, although he will not be rushed into further action.
“It is a big boost to have him back and we had been looking at it for the last few days,” he added. “He has been training sporadically with us and he played an in house game on Tuesday for 50 minutes and looked okay.
“We only had six subs again, which made up our mind a little bit. I was never going to play him more than ten minutes as we are still easing him in, but it is nice to get him back.
“We thought it was a nice psychological boost for him and also for the supporters to have Jermaine back around it and it had that effect. I said to him ‘go and see what you can do’ and he had a bit of an altercation that livened things up!”
Click here to watch the full interview with the manager, plus hear from goalscorer Eoin Doyle by logging into PNE PlayerHD now.