United assistant manager Dennis Booth spoke exclusively to BBC Radio Cumbria yesterday evening as he gave his thoughts on the aggregate LDV win over the Silkmen that sees the Blues return to the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff in early April :
" The players are obviously delighted but very tired, it was a very difficult game. We came here and I don’t know why we started like we did in the league match, two goals down within about 20 minutes. We were very annoyed but then we got the goal out of the blue which set us back up there.
" It was a very entertaining game, both sides gave everything. After the Simon Grand goal they needed two goals to score but we gave it away in the corner when we should have kept it. You think you’re comfortable with about a minute to go and then a couple of head injuries happen, I don’t know how long the referee was playing because they had one more final assault.
" It’s a great day for the supporters from today, great for the city, we’ll take a lot of people down there with us for a big occasion to go and win it. Now that’s gone though and it’s Northampton on Friday night. We’ve got to get the boys back and look after them, rest them and see if we can go and get a result there.
" Probably if we’d lost the game, we’d have been down but we’ve won the game so that will hopefully be okay. We’ll go there and do it right, you don’t know, Northampton might have the feeling that we are off but if we’re right it’ll be fine. We’ve made it hard work for ourselves tonight though because Macclesfield are a decent side, I know Brian Horton very well and how he gets his teams going, at 2-0 up they’ll probably feel gutted that they’ve lost it because they started very well. "
" We were sloppy, we were disappointed, words were said at half-time, even when we got the goal back, that we weren’t playing anywhere near where we wanted. We got it together though and it’s a credit to the bunch of the lads in there about how they hang in there with games like that, to be 2-0 down and then battle back when it looked like it wasn’t going to be our night.
" We’ll point out certain things tomorrow. As I said before we got the ball in the corner, Adam (Murray) has done brilliantly and the game is over if you just keep the ball, he crosses it, their keeper catches it and within about ten seconds they’ve scored. That’s something we have to learn from because on another night that’s it ,we remind them but give them a pat on the back.
" You’re always learning in football, you’re always learning in decision making, if they take it on board they’ll be better players for it and they’ll go on. They’ve been super tonight, the work-rate that they have put in, they are on their knees really but with winning that makes a hell of a lot of difference.
" We’ll come back though and rest them, it’s not about fitness now at this time of the season, we just make sure we tick them over and have a look who has got one or two bumps and bruises. I think we’ll have a couple of those anyway.
" If the fans hadn’t have been here tonight then we probably wouldn’t have won the tie, they are worth a goal or two you can see that. The atmosphere puts teams under pressure, especially when we were playing down that end, they are fantastic. They deserve it after a few lean years, now they can go down to Cardiff and enjoy the day, I don’t know who we’ll get but we’ll be certainly going to there to win it and not just to enjoy the day out. "