02 February 2021

Matt Taylor hails Exeter’s fighting spirit after win at Stevenage

02 February 2021

Matt Taylor paid tribute to Exeter’s fighting spirit as they emerged from a trying week with a 1-0 win over Stevenage

The Grecians came home from Saturday’s 700-mile round trip to Carlisle with nothing but eked out a victory in Hertfordshire to climb within a point of the League Two play-offs.

Rory McArdle’s first-half header was enough to seal three points and Taylor hailed his side, which featured five academy products.

“We weathered a storm early on from them and then I felt we grew into the game. It’s really pleasing given just how much learning this group still has to do,” said Taylor.

“I thought Ben Seymour and Ryan Bowman worked their back line superbly, and Rory McArdle was just outstanding tonight.

“We are concerned for him at the moment because he’s had to go into hospital with a nasty injury, and I suspect we’ll lose him for a little while.

“What a lot of people don’t see is just how much we have to put into nights like this. We’ve gone from one end of the country to the other this weekend just gone and then it’s another long trek tonight.

“We’re hardly training at the moment to allow bodies to recover but the boys out there did the club proud.

“You can’t call what’s going to happen in the next week let alone the next month so we’ll certainly enjoy this before getting the lads ready for the weekend.”

The Grecians bounced back from two successive defeats and inflicted a first home loss on Stevenage in seven games.

Defender McArdle turned in a teasing delivery from Jack Sparkes just before the half-hour mark, beating David Stockdale, whose signing was announced by Stevenage as the sides were warming up.

Despite the tireless running of Matt Stevens and Luke Norris, Stevenage couldn’t salvage a point which would have helped ease their relegation worries.

“We started really well and should have scored – we had our chances and to put it simply, you have to take them,” said Stevenage boss Alex Revell.

“From our perspective it’s such a poor, poor goal to concede. They are physical, organised and efficient and you have to at least match that. In the situation for the goal we didn’t, and it’s not good enough.

“They’ve come up here on the back of two defeats and if you can rattle one in early, that changes the dynamic for them from a mental point of view but we couldn’t do it.

“When we play, you can see what we’re trying to do but it’s about executing the plan fully. It’ll come and guys like Luke (Norris) are working so hard in that final third. We’ll continue to get our head down and improve.”

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