Dack: We owe fans a huge apology

8:50am Monday 21st January 2013 in Newport County Photograph of the Author By Michael Pearlman

NEWPORT County owe their fans a big apology for a very poor performance, according to the Exiles’ assistant manager Jimmy Dack.

County went down 2-0 to bottom of the Conference Barrow at Rodney Parade on Saturday, squandering a chance to return to the top of the table.

Supporters turned up at 8.30am and spent four hours helping to clear snow from the pitch on a day that went from bad to worse thereafter.

Not only did County lose out, but they also saw Conference top scorer Aaron O’Connor stretcher-ed off with a potentially serious injury.

O’Connor "heard something pop" in his thigh and faces a scan in the next 48 hours that will determine the extent of the damage.

It was far from the day the impressive volunteers would’ve wished for and Dack, who stood in for Justin Edinburgh who didn’t want to talk to the press, explained the frustration and regret the management team felt.

"What we have to say to the fans is we are really disappointed and we let you all down, because you did brilliantly to get the game on.

"We started the game with not the right attitude and Barrow deserved their win, they deserved to beat us and were better than us all over the park.

"We (Edinburgh and Dack) tried everything, we tried to change the shape and the personnel and it just wasn’t to be, we were really disappointing.

"We’ve had a bad day at the office and have missed the opportunity to go to top, that’s massively disappointing.

"The fans wanted the game on to go top of the league and we let them down, we were really poor.

"We are in and out of late at home and that’s not something we can afford if we want to win the league.

"The fans deserve a lot more, they’ve come out in the freezing cold and we apologise, it was a dismal performance.

"Our game plan was the same as always but the execution was wrong.

"We were playing too much long ball, we were telling them to do otherwise but we couldn’t seem to do that."

Dack revealed that the club are hopeful O’Connor’s injury won’t be serious, but has challenged the other players to step up in his absence.

"Aaron is a big miss because of his goals, but the players can’t keep relying on Aaron, we’ve got to share the workload and the goals, we need to improve that all over the park," he said.

"We could’ve been out there for the rest of the week and I don’t think we’d have scored a goal.

"I don’t think it’s hopefully as bad as we first thought with the way he went down, he’s up and about now, he felt a pop when he went for a strike at goal.

"It seems to have settled down, we are hopeful but we won’t know until we do the scan."

Comments(16)

llandaff says...
9:10am Mon 21 Jan 13

Well Jimmy what about some compensation for your loyal fans? A fifty percent reduction in the ticket price for the next home game would show true remorse. Plus some sort of financial penalty for the players who failed in all areas on Saturday. In most other walks of life you get paid for results. What about it?

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oranges says...
9:46am Mon 21 Jan 13

the league table before saturdays game showed why barrow were bottom of the league they are a poor side. yet they came and saw and conquered .Far too many times this season against sides in the bottom half our players seem to think that they only need to turn up and get a certain three points but in effect they wave the white flag .Barrow went to luton and got beaten quite soundly . If we want to stand any chance of being in the play off positions at the end of the season then ourplayers need to get it in their minds to fight for three points and not expect teams like barrow to roll over . That shocking performance must not be repeated but i fear it will and cost us dearly

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cambridge4x4 says...
10:27am Mon 21 Jan 13

What I find a serious problem is the manager running away in the opposite direction from the press. He needs to get a dose of Management 101 and face up to his responsibilities . The buck stops here at the managers feet, What a pathetic response from the leader of the troops !!!!
Not sure of him now .
The BOD need to have a serious word with this guy.You need to be leading up front more than ever when the sh** hits the fan, not turning your back .

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Clever Trevor says...
11:15am Mon 21 Jan 13

Where were the miracle men saturday ie Jolley and Willmott,not being unkind,but when they are as ineffective as they were,that forces our full backs to do the wide man job,thus leaving them exposed time after time,if i were pipey i'd say to sandell,let them do the attacking,they don't cover us anyway.

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jetspotter says...
1:04pm Mon 21 Jan 13

I think J.E. has mentioned before that the main problem at this level is that players often seem unable to take on board and execute the things they are told.For diplomatic reasons he stopped short of suggesting many of them are thick but I suspect that was what he was getting at ! Jimmy Dack is telling us that the management were trying to get the players to adapt the tactics during the game but were getting no response. Surely what is needed is an influential captain who is flexible and can take on board these changes during a match and adapt the style of play as necessary. On paper Pipe seems the man for the job with lots of higher league experience and a dogged determination on the pitch. What is needed on the pitch is football intelligence and this is what we are sadly lacking at the moment.

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Adrian Williams says...
2:18pm Mon 21 Jan 13

I know we're all disappointed after Saturday (I was gutted), but let's not go overboard with the criticism and shoot butterflies with rifles after a poor performance (remember everyone singing from the rooftops after Wrexham and Lincoln). We are still SECOND in the league and there is still a lot to play for. This is our best team and manager in decades - remember that

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CountyValleyboy says...
3:52pm Mon 21 Jan 13

Adrian Williams wrote:
I know we're all disappointed after Saturday (I was gutted), but let's not go overboard with the criticism and shoot butterflies with rifles after a poor performance (remember everyone singing from the rooftops after Wrexham and Lincoln). We are still SECOND in the league and there is still a lot to play for. This is our best team and manager in decades - remember that
I agree !--------------howev
er it is very frustrating !!

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jetspotter says...
5:13pm Mon 21 Jan 13

You are right A.W. but the problem is that it's not the odd poor performance it's now becoming a familiar pattern whenever we play one of the minnow teams. Every time we long suffering fans think we have finally turned the corner the team puts in a performance of such staggering ineptitude that we are left shaking our heads in disbelief. All we ask is some effort and consistency and surely that's not too much to expect.If they were being bribed to lose it would make sense but quite honestly what's happening makes no sense at all !

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Tony Soprano says...
5:37pm Mon 21 Jan 13

cambridge4x4 wrote:
What I find a serious problem is the manager running away in the opposite direction from the press. He needs to get a dose of Management 101 and face up to his responsibilities . The buck stops here at the managers feet, What a pathetic response from the leader of the troops !!!! Not sure of him now . The BOD need to have a serious word with this guy.You need to be leading up front more than ever when the sh** hits the fan, not turning your back .
I have 100% faith in Justin but we have to pose the question, who is managing the manager?

Fair play to Jimmy Dack for facing the music but I have to agree with cambridge 4x4, it's the managers responsibility.

PS pathetic display from our players apart from Michael Flynn who gave a good account of himself, time to pull your socks up guys, that display was awful!!

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larneman says...
5:40pm Mon 21 Jan 13

I click on to the Argus in the hope that I will find that J.E. has found a couple of defenders. I used to click onto the website but I see that its defunct. The latest news on there is that county have signed Jolley. Past managers have have appeared on the website but now there is nothing on it.Sorry but can't tune into the match tomorrow. must catch up on my knitting.

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COUNTYVOICE says...
6:07pm Mon 21 Jan 13

have to agree with some of the contributors last few comments.

edinburgh should have spoken to the press and made his apologies for the very poor display, not left jimmy dack to make excuses

speaks a bit of dodging the bullet. he did that before after losing to lincoln 2-0 last year.

its justin's team so he has to try and explain why they played so crap, or put up some defence.

as for the contributor adrian williams comments about not panicking yet, yes we are somehow still in second place, but i have to agree with jetspotter why SOO MANY INEPT PERFORMANCES have happened since YATEGATE.

i fear that we will eventuallly RUN OUT OF TIME excusing the BAD DAY AT THE OFFICE.

get it together county and make your superiority show, because the first 17 games of the campaign were no fluke and you showed what an entertaining, solid unit you were .

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golfball says...
6:50pm Mon 21 Jan 13

6 clean sheets from 27 games
No consistency
We charge forward in numbers but when the attack breaks down we don't get back.
We have a goalkeeper who is hopeless on crosses and never seems to move off his line and always looks for someone else to blame (no clean sheets). Pidgeley who played well to help put us top of the league doesn't get a look in.
The midfield don't pull their weight in defence.
All the above and we do nothing but sign forwards.
I'm starting to think that we are just not good enough to get promotion but hopefully the message will get home for next season.

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NakedDancer says...
7:36pm Mon 21 Jan 13

To be fair to Justin I'm sure he was fuming and all he could have done was state the obvious re the hopeless performance. Unlike other poor County performances this one wasn't just the players but selection, preparation and tactics.

In this league you can't easily drop players as you still have to pay them. There's limited options on the bench and limited funds for replacements, so empty threats to drop players achieve nothing. JE has to pick them up for Tuesday and the rest of the season.

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ohc says...
8:05pm Mon 21 Jan 13

Is JE not speaking an ominous sign?

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llandaff says...
9:31am Tue 22 Jan 13

JE seems to be adopting a bunker mentality which is hardly the way to motivate the team or reassure the fans. Burying his head in the sand will not make the fact go away that County are just not good enough for promotion as it stands. Just 5 wins since October 9th is more like relegation form. The board have to accept that money needs to be spent now in fortifying the woeful defence. I have been saying this since the Yate nightmare. Is there anbody out there?

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cambridge4x4 says...
10:30am Tue 22 Jan 13

Last word from me on this subject.
I spend a lot of money to see the games ---by choice so I suppose I should not complain, ----but just feel that the whole organization needs a shake . From the Manager to the players to the Admin team .They should understand this is the closest to our "goal" for over 20 years. At least 2,000 of us want to see it happen , but you look around and wonder if the people who can really make it happen have the same commitment as those who spend good money at RP. The manager and players have been taken apart in this column and although nowhere near a relegation crisis, I think there are people here taking a salary who do not deserve one . Total effort from now until April is what we all want to see on the park, blood needs to be spilt. If players cant understand simple instructions we either need to educate them or get them out . The non playing team is also significant in all this ---not sure what are they doing . At least start to act professional and clean up adverts for games that past us 3 weeks ago . It is a top to bottom hard talk required to get us back on track .---with no one exempt. But I will still be there !!.

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