Managers On Forest v Carlisle

Carlisle manager Neil McDonald hailed his side’s 1-0 victory over Nottingham Forest as their best performance of the season.


A solitary strike from top-scorer Karl Hawley just seconds before the interval was sufficient to guarantee a first win in four games for the Cumbrians.

McDonald said: ‘That performance was brilliant. It was a huge team performance and I won’t single out individuals.

‘We didn’t give the opposition a sniff in front of goal. Forest are a huge club and this was a fantastic result for us.’

Forest enjoyed plenty of possession in midfield but were unable to breach a solid United defence.

Hawley’s goal arrived when the visitors appeared to have cleared a Jeff Smith free-kick only for Paul Thirlwell to loft the ball back into the area.

The unmarked Hawley nodded the ball home from six yards for his eleventh goal of the season.

Forest boss Colin Calderwood moaned: ‘We didn’t apply enough pressure in the second half to keep Carlisle penned down and our set plays were ineffective.

‘We were 15 seconds away from a fairly satisfactory first-half performance.’

The Forest boss refused to blame any hangover from the FA Cup defeat at Chelsea for his side’s below-par effort.

‘We could have done better on occasions in the final third but we never found the right rhythm to our game,’ he said.




Nottingham Evening Post