Darren Pratley’s first goal of the season wasn’t enough to see Wanderers pick up their second consecutive victory in the Sky Bet Championship as they were forced to settle for a share of the spoils against Queens Park Rangers.
The deadlock had been broken inside 22 minutes with the skipper heading home from close range – a lead which remained intact until 11 minutes from time when the Hoops’ Idrissa Sylla poked home an equaliser at the near post.
And speaking after the final whistle, manager Phil Parkinson covered the following points…
On the game itself…
It was a tough game played in difficult conditions. I thought we adapted really well though in the first half which led to us getting the goal, but in the second half we found the conditions very tough.
The elements were against us, the pitch got heavier and heavier and a lot of our clearances were mis-hit as a result which meant that we couldn’t get any quality into the front players.
I think the goal typified that really as instead of the clearance going down the side of the two centre-halves to relieve a bit of pressure, it was mis-hit and fell straight to their midfielder who put us under pressure.
To get out in the second half, we needed a bit of quality from our wide players but it wasn’t really a day for the flair players – it was very much one for players to stand strong and at the very least, we’ve got a point.
Prior to the Sheffield Wednesday game, had you offered us four points from these two home games, we’d have taken it.
Obviously being a goal up at half time, you want to go and get all three and us not getting them certainly wasn’t through a lack of effort and the conditions didn’t help.
On Darren Pratley getting on the scoresheet…
I’m so pleased for Darren – it was a great corner from Josh and a superb knock-down from Gary and as we showed last season, a lot of goals come from those second phase situations.
It’s all about reactions and I’m pleased for him because he’s working hard in the centre of midfield with Karl Henry and he deserved that today.
On David Wheater and Mark Beevers’ partnership in the heart of defence…
I thought they were immense today and as I said previously, it definitely wasn’t a day for the flair players and they epitomised that.
It was a difficult game to get our wide players into and credit to QPR, they watched our game from last weekend and doubled up on Sammy to make life difficult for him.
It was a match where we needed our solid characters to stand strong and they definitely did that.
And finally, on the superb backing of the fans in difficult conditions…
They were great, as usual. It’s probably the first time that standing on the touchline, that I’ve noticed that the wind has had such an effect – usually even when it’s windy outside the ground, it’s still inside.
That said though, we’ll take the point and head down to London next weekend in good spirits.