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JP
A few days on now, how do you reflect on your experience, the first time at Wembley as a manager?
GA
I want to go again and hope it is a better one than it was. It was a big day which turned into a big disappointment from the football side. In terms of the day it was a terrific day for the club again, a lot of people enjoyed the weekend but it was disappointing.
My main remit is the football side of it and we played alright but we did contribute to the downfall of the result, probably we shot ourselves in the foot and that is disappointing. From box to box, certainly in the first-half, there was not a great deal in it but the boxes are the important part of the football pitch and we weren't good enough on the day.
JP
Given a bit of time to reflect on it all now, what do you think went wrong in that area then?
GA
It is dead easy, in layman's terms we made really poor mistakes and got punished. It is like when I was talking after the game, you can the mistakes in training, they don't matter, you can make them when you are 3-0 up at Exeter away and they don't matter.
But when it is such a close thing and such a big occasion and you make them at the times we made them, they crucify you. That was the real disappointment that we made mistakes that got punished on the day, we will make those mistakes again but we won't make three in a game like that ever I wouldn't have thought in one game.
And you probably won't make them at such important times in a game and you get away with it, but we didn't get away with it. Not in when we made them, how we made them and the timing of them. So obviously after that we were fighting a losing battle to be fair.
JP
You said immediately after the game, when I am sure that everything is still in your head, that you didn't feel that the occasion had perhaps got to the players. But given that you perhaps had a hand in every one of their goals, do you think maybe there was a little bit of that in there?
GA
It is a loaded question isn't it. It is difficult to answer because we prepared right, the team were right, the warm-up was right. Between two boxes we played some fantastic, not fantastic, but some really nice passing football. It is hard to say whether that was the occasion, I don't know.
People can look at that and say that we made mistakes on the day and it must have been the occasion. Well I think they are mistakes and errors that you just wouldn't make again. I can't answer your question because I just don't know.
If you are saying that it was the occasion then OK, but the players seemed OK, they seemed relaxed, they were in good spirits, so it is hard to say that it was down to the occasion. I think they were poor decisions that we made on that day. If we are going to use the occasion as an excuse it slightly helps the players out, but I am not so sure it was.
JP
You wouldn't expect though, I picked two out because it was all on television and it was all there for everyone to see. The Peter Murphy handball and the Evan Horwood moment for the third goal, you wouldn't expect to see those from two players who never let you down normally?
GA
No you wouldn't, and the timing of them, the first goal is obviously the important one and then right after half-time where we are thinking that we will have a look at it for ten minutes and then we will make…… Because we had Joe (Anyinsah) that is on the bench and struggling with his hernias and we would wait ten minutes to see if we could buy Joe ten minutes because we didn't think he would last 20 minutes, 25 or 30.
In the end he lasted whatever he did (ed - 29 minutes plus injury time) but then straight away after half-time we conceded another one and then the gameplan from half-time has been thrown out of the window as well from another mistake.
As a manager we have not even had the chance to do anything about the situation, it was out of sight before we could really put any changes in place, and that is the disappointing side of it I suppose.
JP
It is interesting the amount of time you felt that you could physically get out of Joe Anyinsah because the pundits on SKY and BBC TV felt that the break was the time to make a change. He seems like the biggest impact you could have brought on but are you saying that he just wasn't capable of playing a half?
GA
We were told 20 minutes, the doctor said 20 minutes. He has one day of training after a double hernia so the pundits didn't know that, and it is easy being a pundit by the way, I have been one. But to the detriment of Joe, to put him on for 45 minutes to risk snapping a reconstructed hernia, or doing any damage to that, I would have got shot down in flames wouldn't I by……..
It is not fair on Joe and it was a gamble with having him on the bench, we could have probably swapped but to be fair we would have had to make one of the changes from a midfield player. One of the changes would be a midfield player or little Bridgey (Marc Bridge-Wilkinson) to get you a bit more pace down the wide, and the actual midfield three were doing OK.
They were doing alright, Kav (Graham Kavanagh) was playing OK and getting on the ball and making things happen. There is a bit of creativeness in Adam (Clayton) so we were going to leave it ten minutes and then change it around if we hadn't got any joy. But that ten minute spell - we make another poor mistake and it is 3-0 and we are out of sight.
JP
Given hindsight, final question on I guess the day itself, given hindsight the way it turned out, have you learned things that you might do differently on a big occasion like that again?
GA
Well of course you learn, I have got to learn, the players have got to learn. But if you look at the way the game went and the timings of the goals, it kills every manager's chance of doing anything about it. One when the game is even-stephen, we were probably on top when they score the first goal.
Crucial one at half-time where you are just thinking get in at 1-0 and we can start thinking about how we can do something about it, it is no great disaster. Concede one on the stroke of half-time and concede one right after the half-time break, the best minds in the world struggle to then try to do something about that. The timings were horrendous to do anything about.
JP
Your fans turned out, just anywhere between 21,000 and 24,000 were the numbers that we heard, 73,500 on the day down there. How much did they mean to you and how important will they be to you over the coming months and years I guess?
GA
For me I am not disappointed for myself and the players because we had the chance to do something about it. The fans go there and we are in their hands to be fair, how we perform is down to the players and myself and the backroom staff. So I know they have enjoyed their day, when they look at it they will be glad they went.
I am actually in two minds at the minute, it is one of them, you really look forward to it but then you are disappointed with what went on in terms of the playing side. But I think the majority of the fans had a good time, we want them to come back.
We wanted them to have a great day, we wanted to win the Trophy, there is no question about that. That is probably as disappointed as I have been in my career after the game playing side included. But you have a responsibility to the fans who turned out in their numbers and spent a hell of a lot of money.
But I hope they are glad they went and 40-odd teams would have liked to have been in our situation. But everybody shares the disappointment, we know that we made errors on the day, we actually played some half decent stuff at times but we made errors that would crucify us in any terms of any types of games.
JP
There was an overpowering feeling of pride amongst the Carlisle fans in the build-up to, and even after the game, just of being there and fans saying things like "we will be back". I know that you really had a strong desire to get a team to Wembley, you did it in your first full season as a manager, how committed, how much is it in your heart now to do it again, and to go and take those fans and perhaps give them more of a day in the sunshine?
GA
I never had a strong desire to take the team to Wembley, I have a strong desire to improve the whole football club. By performing in every competition we possibly can this season we have managed to get through to what should have been a fantastic day.
It was a good achievement to get there from the club, from everybody, not me or the players but from everybody at the club, there are a lot of people that have worked together to get that. That is what I am trying to do and that it is what I will continue to try to do.
We will have to learn from that and we will have to look at that and think where we do we go from here now in terms of keeping progressing and that is the key. We will try again, I want to go back, don't get me wrong, I want to go back because it will be a while before I pick up the DVD to be honest. I want to go back and I want to take the team that little bit step further.
That is what you try to do in football, when you achieve something you want to maintain that and progress even further forward. That is what I am aiming to do, nothing is going to hold me back in terms of my ambition to be successful in what I do. Sometimes there are obstacles in your way and we were probably our own obstacles on Sunday.
But it is very difficult to say too much about the players that have performed admirably for us over the piece, over the season, and I need them to continue to do that. I hope people do understand we contributed to our own downfall but we do it as a group, we take it on the chin together.
I stand at the helm of it and everybody else has to share parts of the blame and that is without being overly critical with any individuals, because that is not the way I work. Players know what I feel today, I have a real good chat with the players today, I have left it a couple of days but I have got a real load of my mind today.
Because at the end of the day supporters put their trust in myself and the players, I put my trust in the players too and they have to go and stand up and be counted. Football gives you absolutely nothing, that is why we deserved to be at Wembley because we earned the right to be there.
We didn't earn the right to win the cup because we made mistakes on the day and we didn't play as well as we can on the day. That is black and white, no dressing it up either down or up.