Chris saves the day as Boro beat Grays

Goalkeeper Chris Day put in a man of the match performance as Stevenage held on to beat Grays 2-1 at the New Rec. Grays dominated for most of the game with Day making several saves to keep a flat Boro in the game. Two goals against the run of play from Mitchell Cole were enough to give the Hertfordshire side the win and the 3 points which move them up to 11th place in the Blue Square Premier table, 2 points off the play-offs.

Graham Westley stuck with the same side that beat Forest Green at the weekend, but Gary Mills and Ashley Bayes were drafted onto the bench in place of Peter Vincenti and Steve Smith. Former Boro duo Neil Smith and Gary Phillips were in charge of Grays, who had new manager Wayne Burnett watching on from the bench. New loan signing Jonny Dixon was left on the bench as Kieron St Aimie and Sean Rigg kept their places after good performances at the weekend in the 2-1 victory over Wrexham.

Grays started much the stronger with ex Boro midfielder Mark Molesley running the show from midfield. Molesley had about 3 good opportunities to open the scoring within the first 20 minutes, but Chris Day did well to save one, with the other 2 going wide. Boro couldn’t seem to get outside their own half, although they did make a couple of chances in the latter stages of the first half with Michael Bostwick and Steve Morison both going close.

After a poor first period, both sides upped the tempo in the second half and Boro opened the scoring within 3 minutes of the restart. Stuart Thug Thurgood gave away possession in the Grays half to Mitchell Cole who ran through on goal before lifting the ball into the net. A fantastic finish from a player that has been slowly improving in front of goal recently. The lead didn’t last long though and within a minute Grays had equalised with Jamie Stuart finishing. Mark Albrighton had given away a sloppy corner which was put across and Day did superbly to parry the initial effort, but was powerless to stop the rebound from Stuart. A poor goal to give away.

Boro though again showed their character and 3 minutes later thanks to more poor defending from the hosts they were back in front. Stuart who had scored the equaliser gave away the ball which Cole ran onto before rounding the keeper and finishing for his second of the night. Grays tried their best to force another equaliser, but Day was in superb form, keeping everything that went on target out. Westley brought on Thomas for the tired Cole late on and he had a chance to make it 3-1, but curled his effort wide when put through by Steve Morison. Here is what Graham Westley said when he spoke to Setanta after the game.

“It was a very ugly win tonight, but you can’t complain when you win ugly. We got off to a bad start but now we’re grinding out results. I feel like a thief walking out of here – a goalkeeper at one end and a little bit of brilliance from Mitchell at the other”

A good win considering the performance. Had this come at the start of the season the result may have been different. We played far better against Wrexham than we did tonight and got beat 5-0. I think this result also proves just how important having a quality goalkeeper is. Day could give us them extra 10-15 points that are maybe needed for us to get into the play-offs this season. Cole took his goals very well and if he can improve his fitness then he can be a big player for us. Next up, York at BHW on Sunday and we now go into the game above our opponents in the table, looking to sneak into the play-off positions. Bring it on!