True Nomads Supporters

Manager JIm Hacket has emailed me and asked me to make you all aware of the facts regarding The Nomads squad for the Llanelli game. This is his email:-

"On Tuesday Stuart Cook couldn't train due to a back problem and on Thursday evening Chris Herbert couldn't train after being up all night on Wednesday due to something he'd eaten, therefore, the thinking behind the group of players taken on Saturday reflected the facts that if we were going to travel four and a half hours on a coach with someone who has had a back problem, there was every chance that it would flare up again, and in Herbies case, if he wasn't fit to train on Thursday due to being ill, the chances of him being fully fit on Saturday were minimal, and even though he felt fine, why would we expect him to have recovered fully and be able to work for ninety minutes. I think if you were to ask any footballer if they were ok they would tell you they were and you'd only find out after the event that they weren't, so the decision in football terms was easy.

One other point that people don't take into account is that all the travelling squad require paying, therefore, would everybody take players along for the ride and pay them for travelling, knowing they wouldn't be playing? Obviously, the people that would aren't the ones paying the wages. For those same people, they may not be aware, but the Chairman agreed the playing budget with me at the beginning of the season, and that included the contracted players, who get paid whether they play or not, and our budget has been stretched since the beginning of the season with Adam Dickinson not being available, and is now further stretched with Bungle's injury, so again, little issues that contribute to squad selection.

On the playing side of things, for those that didn't see the match against Llanelli, (I'm pretty sure that is everybody who reads the website), the players played a lot better than they had recently, and with a little more luck in the attacking third we could have got something out of the game, Stewart White and Caddy both hit the bar and Stewart had one cleared off the line. After the game, the players themselves knew they'd performed better, so we left with a positive attitude that we'll hopefully take into this weeks game at Carmarthan.

It's interesting to note that now we are going through a sticky patch, the comments on the website are predominantly negative and argumentative, however, that is what football does to people, we've all got opinions, but we haven't all got tunnel vision, which is probably why I'm quite happy to manage the club, and some of the people on the message board are happy to share their opinion.

You can rest assured that all the people involved in running Nomads are working extremely hard in getting back to winning ways, and I'm hopeful that we'll do it soon. It will be in spite of the supporting critics rather than with them!"

Jim Hackett