Barrow boss Dino Maamria ‘hurt’ after Fleetwood fightback

Dino Maamria admitted he was hurting after his Barrow side threw away a two-goal half-time lead to lose 3-2 at Fleetwood.

The Bluebirds had been coasting thanks to Josh Gordon’s 10th-minute penalty and a header from captain Niall Canavan but Esapa Osong gave Fleetwood hope with a goal on 64 minutes.

That led to a frantic finish in which Crispin McLean looked to have snatched a draw on 89 minutes, but Barrow keeper Wyll Stanway fumbled Fleetwood’s winner over his own line with seconds remaining.

“That hurts a lot,” said Barrow boss Maamria following his side’s fifth straight away defeat. “I told the staff at half-time I don’t really like 2-0 scorelines, especially with the mentality of the squad right now.

“We told them to stay on the front foot, keep pressing and keep compact. I said don’t try to hold on to it, go and get a third one.

“I’m still finding out about the players but I’m not sure where they are mentally and the ones with the strongest mentality will show the resilience. They can suffer more and enjoy the suffering. Today we didn’t enjoy the suffering.

“Obviously I’m disappointed with the second half, we defended too long and allowed too many balls into our box.

“We have to be accountable. We do have players to win football matches though, if we play like we did in the first half.

“We’re going to have to suffer and dig deep to win games, and they’re going to do whatever it takes because I’m not here to lose games so I have to pick the players that are willing to suffer to win games.”

Fleetwood interim boss Matt Lawlor tried to sum up his feelings after they had seemed down and out.

“Relief, just relief, more than anything,” he said. “I’m really proud of our second-half performance even though I’m still raging about our first-half performance.

“I know it’s League Two football so you’re not going to get it consistently for 90 minutes, but to come back like that comes from the high energy, desire and character that we’ve built. That second half showed it in droves.

“So I’m relieved, proud, excited and raging, a mixture of those things and at any one point in that game I was any of those things.

“We need consistency, that needs to be better, and it has been better in terms of performance and consistency but that was probably our worst 45 minutes.

“We didn’t do much and we gifted them the goals, we were a yard off and we lacked that energy and desire. All they did was turn us and use set-pieces, we let them do it.

“To then go and put that second-half performance together, that’s what I want from the start. It’s very up-and-down but anyone can beat anyone in this league.”