We're a tough nut to crack – AFC Wimbledon boss Johnnie Jackson hails defence
An early strike by Josh Neufville gave the Dons a 2-0 aggregate victory that was as deserved as it was hard-earned.
The South London outfit have not let in a goal in the last three games, and further demonstrated why their defensive record remains the best in the division.
Jackson has not featured at Wembley as a player but will do so as a manager against Walsall on Monday May 26, and he feels his defence is pivotal.
'We've made ourselves a tough nut to crack,' Jackson said.
'They had to make two enforced changes but they didn't do too much different. we knew they would come and put it on us.
'We knew if we kept a clean sheet we'd be through, though we probably should have won by more in the end.
'To get the goal when we did really helped because they started well. I knew we'd have to suffer at times.
'I never played at Wembley – one thing I really regretted when I retired. To get the opportunity to lead this team out is really special for me.
'We have to enjoy these moments, but we haven't done anything yet.'
AFC Wimbledon effectively booked their trip to Wembley after just eight minutes when Neufville saw goalkeeper Alex Bass off his line and lobbed him for the decisive goal.
The hosts had the perfect chance to wrap proceedings up 10 minutes after the restart. Matty Stevens fed Marcus Browne, but his effort was heroically blocked by Lewis Macari.
Stevens looked set to put the tie beyond any doubt in the 69th minute when he found space in the area from a deep James Tilley cross. However, Bass denied him with an excellent one-handed save to turn his effort around a post.
Notts County manager Stuart Maynard was left to rue his side's early setback – and the absence of key attacking duo David McGoldrick and Alassana Jatta.
He said: 'There were no real openings in the beginning, but then we conceded a very sloppy goal.
'In the second half the frustration creeps in. We kept going all the way to the end. That's all I can ask from the group.
'We believed that we could hurt them. You have to give credit to the opposition. They have the most clean sheets in the division for a reason.
'I wish them well in the final.
'Any team in the country would have missed McGoldrick and Jatta. We want McGoldrick to be in the team next season. He is in my plans.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The National
31 minutes ago
- The National
Mick Kennedy on East Kilbride, not getting paid, & hating Aberdeen win
To illustrate the point, he recalls the story of the day he met owners Paul and James Kean to discuss taking the job at Scotland's newest senior team. The way he tells it makes it hard to be sure who was interviewing whom. After assuring the Kean brothers that he would find a way to get them through the quagmire of the pyramid play-offs into the senior leagues, Kennedy had one question bouncing around his head. What then? 'If all they wanted was to make it to League Two and sit there consolidating, then I wasn't the man for the job,' he says now. 'So I told them that we should be looking to be in the Championship within five years. That was two years ago. 'I think you can do that steadily and sustainably as the prize money increases. Then if we get the right backing from sponsors and fans…' A bold target for a club preparing to play their first ever League Two game against Spartans, Kennedy sees no harm in setting the bar high or showing a bit of ambition. Formed in 2010 to deliver senior league football to a new town of 75,000 people on the southern fringes of Glasgow, rivals in the lower reaches of Scottish football tend to eye the new boys with something close to suspicion. Regarded sniffily as a club throwing their money around in a quest to buy their way into the senior leagues – don't they all? – Kennedy claims the club's growth is more incremental and sustainable than that. Rubbishing talk of a big player budget he makes no attempt to play down the big targets, the big ambitions, in his head. The bar is set high. By way of an example he recalls an interview with Ian Maxwell where the SFA chief executive spoke of Scotland punching above their weight since Steve Clarke's appointment. 'I just think that's the wrong language to be using. When you tell people that stuff they start to believe it and then when failure comes they accept it because they've been told they're not really meant to be in that environment. They're not really meant to be successful.' Read more: Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers on why Russell Martin will cope with Rangers pressure Are Falkirk going to rub Scottish football's face in its own faeces this season? He knows, more than anyone, what can happen when a small club dares to think big. As manager of Darvel, the 45-year-old oversaw one of the biggest upsets in Scottish football history when the non-league Ayrshire side team toppled an Aberdeen side five leagues higher in the pyramid. Like an artist trying to write the follow-up to that No.1 novelty hit, Kennedy knows how catchy the win over Aberdeen was to the country at large, but hates the idea of playing the same tune over and over until he grows sick of it. He's reluctant to be defined by one game of football. 'I actually hate that game now,' he laughs. 'I think I've managed now for 10 years and I've won nine leagues, but I get it. 'We actually went to Montrose, who were sitting second in League One the round before, and beat them 5-2. 'I was more impressed with that performance than I was with the Aberdeen performance. 'I said to the players here at East Kilbride a couple of weeks ago that success to me is winning trophies. 'Winning one game of football is not success to me. 'Success is winning stuff. That's how you should be judged. 'It's great to have those moments like Aberdeen but that's all they are. Moments.' The comedown from toppling [[Aberdeen]] and nudging Jim Goodwin towards the Pittodrie exit was swift and brutal. John McGlynn's Falkirk travelled to Darvel in the next round and romped to a 5-1 win, with Kennedy savaged on social media for a pre-match team talk – aired on the BBC – where he branded his [[Ayr]]shire heroes, 'soldiers of love.' Laughing, he glances around the club's impressive K-Park facility and the first player to catch his eye is defender Sean Fagan as he ambles past en route to training. 'I say some strange things Sean eh?…' There is no disagreement or dissent and, by the sounds of things, that's probably for the best. A modern manager who puts the emphasis on building individual relationships with players, Kennedy uses the half-time hairdryer sparingly and sees no point in ranting and raving at players like the 21st century incarnation of Jim McLean. He will admit, however, to running the East Kilbride dressing room like a 'dictatorship.' 'It's not a dictatorship in the sense of I'm screaming and shouting. 'But speak to any of the boys here and they would tell you that, with no disrespect to other part-time clubs, it's the most professional environment they have been in. 'The demands are so high, so, so high. And that's in everything we do. The culture, the ethos. 'How we train, how we play. Everybody is expected to do additional work away from training and if they don't do it then they don't get in the squad on a Saturday. 'We don't carry anybody. The minute we feel we're carrying anybody, or trying to convince then they are gone. 'We have dietary requirements, we keep an eye on weight, body fat. It's proper intense.' That being the case, a discount card to the Black Rooster Peri Peri restaurant chain seems unlikely to be included in the bonus section of a player's contract. Raised in Abercrombie Street in Glasgow's Calton district, Kennedy worked for the Wheatley Housing group, Scotland's biggest social landlord, before he co-founded Black Rooster in 2017. The chain has now expanded to 19 stores and is moving into the London market. Effectively full-time at East Kilbride, business partner Kevin Bell handles the other stuff. Unusually for a manager in the senior game, Kennedy accepts no payment for his work. He doesn't need the money and would happily return to amateur football tomorrow if the enjoyment of coaching at a higher level drained away. 'I have always said that I will never take a wage anywhere I go. 'Because I would never want to be conflicted by that. 'I speak to lots of managers in the leagues and it's tough. Guys in full-time jobs and guys in part-time jobs and they need the income, they need the job. 'The alternative if they chuck it is working on a building site on a Monday morning or something. 'So I understand why they put up with that stress and pressure of management even when they're not enjoying it. 'The difference with me is that I only ever go somewhere if I am going to enjoy it and if I ever felt like I didn't enjoy it I would instantly stop.' In an industry where money dictates every cough and spit, it's an unusual approach. In the event of East Kilbride progressing through the leagues – or a bigger club calling – he'd have a decision to make, and a desire to accept a fair day's pay for a fair day's work would be natural enough. For other people, maybe. 'Someone asked me that question recently. 'I suppose if we keep progressing, the club might look to go full-time. 'Or, if I keep doing well against teams above us in the pyramid, a full-time team might come at some point. 'But I genuinely still don't think I would take a wage. 'I think I would just do the job because I felt it was the right thing to do. 'I wouldn't want to be conflicted. 'Clubs know when they hire me that I'm here for the right reasons. 'It's not about self-interest or enriching myself at all. 'I just do this because I love it and the minute I don't love it anymore I stop doing it. 'It has never been this burning desire of mine to be a manager in the senior leagues.' Now that he is, he addresses the quest to deliver success with the passion and zeal of a methodist preacher. His conversation is peppered with talk of culture, values, and behaviours. While other clubs in League Two fret and worry over the cost of fixing the enclosure roof or plummeting through the trap door leading to the Lowland or Highland Leagues – from where few return – East Kilbride are focused on building a football club moving in an upwards trajectory. 'The owners put their heart and soul into this club, and they want to leave a real legacy. 'The club is owned by a trust, a charity they set up and invested in. 'The last thing they want to do is let this all fall apart when they're not here any longer.' Living in the shadows of Celtic and Rangers brings obvious challenges. The club's average crowd can be measured in hundreds rather than thousands. They beat Championship Raith Rovers in Kirkcaldy in the Premier Sports Cup and won again in Elgin, but lost six goals to Inverness after running out of legs in the second half. While a new stand was installed to meet SPFL entry criteria, [[East Kilbride]] remain a work in progress, off the pitch and on it. 'I brought the average age of the squad down to 23 this year, and that was on purpose. 'We want to be known as a club which brings boys in to play a certain style of football and gain the opportunity to move on.
The Herald Scotland
33 minutes ago
- The Herald Scotland
Mick Kennedy on East Kilbride, not getting paid, & hating Aberdeen win
To illustrate the point, he recalls the story of the day he met owners Paul and James Kean to discuss taking the job at Scotland's newest senior team. The way he tells it makes it hard to be sure who was interviewing whom. After assuring the Kean brothers that he would find a way to get them through the quagmire of the pyramid play-offs into the senior leagues, Kennedy had one question bouncing around his head. What then? 'If all they wanted was to make it to League Two and sit there consolidating, then I wasn't the man for the job,' he says now. 'So I told them that we should be looking to be in the Championship within five years. That was two years ago. 'I think you can do that steadily and sustainably as the prize money increases. Then if we get the right backing from sponsors and fans…' A bold target for a club preparing to play their first ever League Two game against Spartans, Kennedy sees no harm in setting the bar high or showing a bit of ambition. Formed in 2010 to deliver senior league football to a new town of 75,000 people on the southern fringes of Glasgow, rivals in the lower reaches of Scottish football tend to eye the new boys with something close to suspicion. Regarded sniffily as a club throwing their money around in a quest to buy their way into the senior leagues – don't they all? – Kennedy claims the club's growth is more incremental and sustainable than that. Rubbishing talk of a big player budget he makes no attempt to play down the big targets, the big ambitions, in his head. The bar is set high. By way of an example he recalls an interview with Ian Maxwell where the SFA chief executive spoke of Scotland punching above their weight since Steve Clarke's appointment. 'I just think that's the wrong language to be using. When you tell people that stuff they start to believe it and then when failure comes they accept it because they've been told they're not really meant to be in that environment. They're not really meant to be successful.' Read more: Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers on why Russell Martin will cope with Rangers pressure Are Falkirk going to rub Scottish football's face in its own faeces this season? He knows, more than anyone, what can happen when a small club dares to think big. As manager of Darvel, the 45-year-old oversaw one of the biggest upsets in Scottish football history when the non-league Ayrshire side team toppled an Aberdeen side five leagues higher in the pyramid. Like an artist trying to write the follow-up to that No.1 novelty hit, Kennedy knows how catchy the win over Aberdeen was to the country at large, but hates the idea of playing the same tune over and over until he grows sick of it. He's reluctant to be defined by one game of football. 'I actually hate that game now,' he laughs. 'I think I've managed now for 10 years and I've won nine leagues, but I get it. 'We actually went to Montrose, who were sitting second in League One the round before, and beat them 5-2. 'I was more impressed with that performance than I was with the Aberdeen performance. 'I said to the players here at East Kilbride a couple of weeks ago that success to me is winning trophies. 'Winning one game of football is not success to me. 'Success is winning stuff. That's how you should be judged. 'It's great to have those moments like Aberdeen but that's all they are. Moments.' The comedown from toppling [[Aberdeen]] and nudging Jim Goodwin towards the Pittodrie exit was swift and brutal. John McGlynn's Falkirk travelled to Darvel in the next round and romped to a 5-1 win, with Kennedy savaged on social media for a pre-match team talk – aired on the BBC – where he branded his [[Ayr]]shire heroes, 'soldiers of love.' Laughing, he glances around the club's impressive K-Park facility and the first player to catch his eye is defender Sean Fagan as he ambles past en route to training. 'I say some strange things Sean eh?…' There is no disagreement or dissent and, by the sounds of things, that's probably for the best. A modern manager who puts the emphasis on building individual relationships with players, Kennedy uses the half-time hairdryer sparingly and sees no point in ranting and raving at players like the 21st century incarnation of Jim McLean. He will admit, however, to running the East Kilbride dressing room like a 'dictatorship.' 'It's not a dictatorship in the sense of I'm screaming and shouting. 'But speak to any of the boys here and they would tell you that, with no disrespect to other part-time clubs, it's the most professional environment they have been in. 'The demands are so high, so, so high. And that's in everything we do. The culture, the ethos. 'How we train, how we play. Everybody is expected to do additional work away from training and if they don't do it then they don't get in the squad on a Saturday. 'We don't carry anybody. The minute we feel we're carrying anybody, or trying to convince then they are gone. 'We have dietary requirements, we keep an eye on weight, body fat. It's proper intense.' That being the case, a discount card to the Black Rooster Peri Peri restaurant chain seems unlikely to be included in the bonus section of a player's contract. Raised in Abercrombie Street in Glasgow's Calton district, Kennedy worked for the Wheatley Housing group, Scotland's biggest social landlord, before he co-founded Black Rooster in 2017. The chain has now expanded to 19 stores and is moving into the London market. Effectively full-time at East Kilbride, business partner Kevin Bell handles the other stuff. Unusually for a manager in the senior game, Kennedy accepts no payment for his work. He doesn't need the money and would happily return to amateur football tomorrow if the enjoyment of coaching at a higher level drained away. 'I have always said that I will never take a wage anywhere I go. 'Because I would never want to be conflicted by that. 'I speak to lots of managers in the leagues and it's tough. Guys in full-time jobs and guys in part-time jobs and they need the income, they need the job. 'The alternative if they chuck it is working on a building site on a Monday morning or something. 'So I understand why they put up with that stress and pressure of management even when they're not enjoying it. 'The difference with me is that I only ever go somewhere if I am going to enjoy it and if I ever felt like I didn't enjoy it I would instantly stop.' In an industry where money dictates every cough and spit, it's an unusual approach. In the event of East Kilbride progressing through the leagues – or a bigger club calling – he'd have a decision to make, and a desire to accept a fair day's pay for a fair day's work would be natural enough. For other people, maybe. 'Someone asked me that question recently. 'I suppose if we keep progressing, the club might look to go full-time. 'Or, if I keep doing well against teams above us in the pyramid, a full-time team might come at some point. 'But I genuinely still don't think I would take a wage. 'I think I would just do the job because I felt it was the right thing to do. 'I wouldn't want to be conflicted. 'Clubs know when they hire me that I'm here for the right reasons. 'It's not about self-interest or enriching myself at all. 'I just do this because I love it and the minute I don't love it anymore I stop doing it. 'It has never been this burning desire of mine to be a manager in the senior leagues.' Now that he is, he addresses the quest to deliver success with the passion and zeal of a methodist preacher. His conversation is peppered with talk of culture, values, and behaviours. While other clubs in League Two fret and worry over the cost of fixing the enclosure roof or plummeting through the trap door leading to the Lowland or Highland Leagues – from where few return – East Kilbride are focused on building a football club moving in an upwards trajectory. 'The owners put their heart and soul into this club, and they want to leave a real legacy. 'The club is owned by a trust, a charity they set up and invested in. 'The last thing they want to do is let this all fall apart when they're not here any longer.' Living in the shadows of Celtic and Rangers brings obvious challenges. The club's average crowd can be measured in hundreds rather than thousands. They beat Championship Raith Rovers in Kirkcaldy in the Premier Sports Cup and won again in Elgin, but lost six goals to Inverness after running out of legs in the second half. While a new stand was installed to meet SPFL entry criteria, [[East Kilbride]] remain a work in progress, off the pitch and on it. 'I brought the average age of the squad down to 23 this year, and that was on purpose. 'We want to be known as a club which brings boys in to play a certain style of football and gain the opportunity to move on.
Daily Record
3 hours ago
- Daily Record
Mario Lapointe reveals investment in Dumbarton goes beyond cash as owner bares his soul to management and punters
The new Dumbarton owner is bullish over the events which have transpired since he took the reins at The Rock in Jun Right now Mario Lapointe is a happy chappy. The new Dumbarton owner is bullish over the events which have transpired since he took the reins at The Rock in June after the Good Ship Sons ran aground in the form of liquidation and the subsequent forming as a newco after a 15-point penalty put paid to their League One status. Scottish football is no stranger to unexpected saviours but a French-Canadian musician who has made his money in the world of electronics is the unlikeliest spark for a club in need. But Lapointe is bullish over the Sons' future with ticket sales on the up, added investment in the club's youth set-up and pioneering pay it forward schemes directly engaging youths in the Dumbarton area. They will start the League Two season with a five-point penalty but the mood music around Lapointe's most ambitious project yet is rising after a Premier Sports Cup campaign which started with a win over Stirling Albion and ended with a victory over crisis-hit Hamilton. Montreal native Lapointe is a big personality but his role as custodian of Dumbarton doesn't come with a laissez-faire attitude – just ask the management team who hear from him after every game. Football advisor Neil Watt, appointed by Lapointe himself, and manager Stevie Farrell receive an instant debrief from the boss who is back in Scotland for their League Two opener against Clyde as they aim to quickly wipe out the deduction they were slapped with. Speaking exclusively to Record Sport, Lapointe said: "I'll be watching our games and I take notes and I take notes and after the game I'll write to our adviser Neil Watt and Stevie, our coach, and I'll share my notes. "I coached hockey 19 years and there's things in hockey that we cannot take a low effort or something like that or we're attached to details because it's a very fast game, ice hockey is very fast compared to football "I write what I see, just like I'm talking to you now, I'm a guy that's very direct. I don't beat around the bush too much. and so, I write exactly what I see. "And then to push my efforts, I'll make sure that if I have a solution for it, the solution will be there too, and I send it to them and they (management team) probably go, "Oh my god.", "And this is why I went to get Neil Watt at the same time. I had set five different aspects for me to evaluate our coaching staff and those five aspects. "So for me to be able to evaluate, let's say, the coaching staff, the confidence level, it's like statistics, you have a certain way of saying things, but what's your confidence level? for the coaching staff to receive it, it could not just be from this French Canadian guy that knows about hockey and coaching. It had to be also from a guy that agrees with it, or doesn't agree with it in Neil Watt, right now in our perspective, he's that guy. He's taking care of it. "He's the mentor of the coaching staff, but also he's a guy that's taking his notes as well, and he receives mine. And maybe our notes match sometimes, and perhaps they don't. I cannot be everything, which I am not the best at everything, but I'm pretty good at everything. But I surround myself with some of the best. I'll try to anyway. and that's what I tried to do in this case." The new man in town is an open book and appears willing to self-evaluate after admitting the emotions of his first voyage to the Shire resulted in emotions running high and a club legend offering a quiet gesture to avoid the owner boiling over in front of his public. Lapointe admits his primal reactions in the stands came as a surprise to himself. He added: "During the game, I'll say nothing. I'll watch. If I'm at the stadium, it's a different thing though because at the stadium, I did find myself getting mad a couple of times last time and that's not usually me. "But when you coach for so many years behind a bench, you're not a guy that lets yourself go so much because everything's planned and you're going at it, But when you're in the stands, it has been a while that I haven't been in the stands for a long time. It was good because I was sitting next to Murdo MacLeod and he put his hand on my shoulder a couple of times "So, I don't know if he noticed that, but he was really trying to calm me down, I think. And that's fine because I am a competitive guy. I like to obviously win and I don't mind losing. I've never been a bad loser, but every loss is an opportunity to find out why you lost and how you can do something different and right now I'm happy." Lapointe comes with no airs and graces despite his success in life and his modesty in the abode he rests his eyes on when he makes the trip from Canada to his new home. And his open doors policy has stretched to his social media presence, with Dumbarton fans invited directly to his personal Facebook page as he toyed with letting those beyond the stadium hear about the success of a team under new ownership. He said: "They say that change is hard to happen, and for me I don't have that problem of being uncomfortable. You know what I mean? if I send you where I live when I go to Scotland right now it was a mattress in an empty apartment and that was it, and I got it late and stuff and I couldn't care less. "I had a picture on my Facebook with a huge church bell that comes in the rack and a lot of people, 'my god, what does he want to do with that and stuff?' And I didn't buy it, of course. but in Montreal, one of the biggest things is that people have a losing team,..but when they score, the whole town knows because you can hear that bell ringing, and it puts a smile on your face every time."
