Notts County Player/Coach Alan Smith had mixed emotions after the 2-2 draw at home to Scunthorpe United.
Having gone a goal down in the first minute of the game, Notts battled back to take a 2-1 lead in the Sky Bet League 1 encounter, but a Niall Canavan equaliser late on in the game gave the visitors a share of the points.
Smith said after the match: “It was a good game to play in, I really enjoyed it and I think the two contrasts of the emotion of scoring and then conceding, it’s difficult to take.
“But we’ve had knockbacks all season. We had a massive knockback to the club and the playing staff on Monday and I think that you saw the response today that particularly Shaun [Derry] and Greg [Abbott] would have been proud of.
“That’s what we wanted to relay today that we were out there as a team that wanted to still put on a Notts County shirt and let everyone be proud of. It should never be questioned, the effort and commitment, I think that was evident today and the fans were brilliant, they got behind us,” he added.
“To start off the game and be one-nil down after 30 seconds, to drag ourselves back, get in front and then concede again, probably with two minutes to go, it’s heart-breaking, but we’re big enough, we’ve got to take it on the chin.
“We’ve got to learn from our mistakes and learn quickly because it’s a game for us to win. We concede from two set pieces, I can’t really remember much more in the game that Scunthorpe had,” Smith continued.
“On a positive side, we played some great football in the first half, we looked dangerous, we looked like we were going to score every time we went forward and, as I say, just a hammer blow at the end just takes the gloss off a positive performance.”
Subscribers can watch the full post-match interview with Alan Smith on Magpie Player.