Andy Crosby hails Tranmere resilience after late win at Grimsby

Andy Crosby credited Tranmere’s resilience to halt a second-half resurgence from Grimsby in their dramatic 2-1 victory at Blundell Park.

Having gone ahead in the first half through Charlie Whitaker, the away side were hanging on after the break as Darragh Burns brought the Mariners back level.

However, it was Rovers who had the last laugh as substitute Kristian Dennis profited from some lax defending late on from the hosts to regain the lead for his side in the sixth minute of injury time.

“It was a brilliant ending to a really tough game for us against a really good opponent,” said a delighted Crosby.

“I can see us growing as a team, and we showed a lot of resilience in the second half because we were backs-to-the-wall for a lot of it.

“Our goalkeeper made a couple of good saves, and we got a couple of good blocks in which allowed us to still be in the game at the end and get the impact we did off the bench.

“Credit to every player who came on, and it was Kristian [Dennis] who was in the right place at the right time to capitalise on the chance right at the end.

“That’s a huge three points for us when we’re still in the infancy of growing, and we need time to find some consistency, but all in all, it’s been a good month for us where we’ve shown different qualities.

“You need to be resilient away from home against a good team like Grimsby, who know how to move the ball well and they test you in lots of ways.”

The result was a sickening blow for Grimsby, who are now five without a win in the league.

A draw would have been enough to take them back into the play-offs before the rest of the league play, but David Artell was instead left to rue missed opportunities again.

He said: “I think like everyone else in the ground, I’m frustrated, for two reasons.

“One, we wasted the first 45 minutes trying to play a type of football we don’t want to play and then secondly, with the amount of chances we wasted in the second half.

“We give the lads credit for taking on board what we said at half-time because we were much better, and we should’ve been out of sight before we got a kick in the shins.

“If you don’t take your chances at one end, then you could very likely end up with no points from a performance that warranted much more.

“They know I won’t shout out at them for trying to play football, which we only did in the second half, and in that time alone we did enough to win the game.”