Another Kurt Barrow double and brilliant defensive effort lifted Tamworth FC to a third Northern Inland Premier League win in as many games, and second in a row without conceding a goal.
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A week after accounting for the previously undefeated Demon Knights 3-nil, FC shut out East Armidale 4-nil.
Ben Davis’ glancing header in the final minute polished off what was a dominant performance.
Barrow gave FC the early advantage and they pretty well controlled the game from there, coach Greg Bartlett again highlighting his sides defence as the most pleasing part.
“A lot of it is to do with our defence and our midfielders working very hard in the midfield to help out the defence,” he said.
“We had our defence change around again because of late changes but it worked really well so that might be something we stick with,” he said.
One of those changes was pushing Troy Hearfield back to a more defensive role.
“Troy played the back end of his A-League career in the defence so it’s not a new position to him. And with his knowledge and his skill it just makes their job a bit easier,” Bartlett said.
After slotting a double against DK, Barrow doubled FC’s lead late in the first half with a good finish.
If it hadn’t been already, Bailey Campbell struck early in the second half to take the wind out of Easts’ sails.
Bartlett said he always felt they had control of the game.
“They might have had one or two shots at goal other than that we had most of the play,” he said.
“We still missed a couple (of goals). We’ve got to stop doing that because we’re going to come up against a team that’s going to not let us off the hook.”
“[But] Their keeper had a very good game. He made a couple of really good saves.”
Easts were a bit of a “patch-up” team as coach Mark Gywnne put it.
“We had probably three out of four backs out and one mid-fielder,” Gwynne said.
“That’s been our problem. We can’t seem to get the same team on the field.”
He had no doubt that contributed to the result.
“The first two goals were from our backs mistakes,” he said.
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Lack of communication was part of their problem. They also didn’t react quick enough to the good balls FC put into the area.
“It’s hard when you can’t seem to get any combinations,” Gwynne said.
It affected their attack as well, which was quite stilted.
“We struggled because we couldn’t find feet,” he said.
There were probably only “three or four times” where they strung a dozen or so passes together.
But Gwynne is confident things can turn around for them.
“It’s going to come good,” he said.
“We have just got to play smarter football. Keep it on the deck and find feet.”
