AFC Fylde at home again in FA Trophy but opening win could have been more emphatic
AFC Fylde will meet either Southport or South Shields in the second round of this season’s FA Trophy.
Danny Rowe’s first-half goal was enough to see the Coasters progress into the last 32.
Missed chances meant the victory could have been more emphatic but Bentley was happy enough to progress.
“We want to win every game; we made that clear from day one,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter how you win but we could have won more comfortably than we did.
“I’ve been in tricky ties where you’re 1-0 up, so far on top, and you’re missing chance after chance.
“If there’s doubt in the players’ mind, they’re thinking this isn’t in the script and we should be out of sight.
“Ultimately we dug in and got a clean sheet; that’s four at home on the spin since we’ve been here and eight in 11 which is fantastic.
“We’ve scored the goal, won the game and we’re in the hat for the next round.
“On another day, we could have scored, six, seven or eight but we scored one and it was an important one.
“There’s plenty to look at, more with regard to game management, but we won so that’s pleasing.”
The win against Curzon began the Coasters’ defence of the trophy they won against Leyton Orient last season.
It was another victory in a knockout competition, following on from their passage into the FA Cup’s third round.
The aim for Bentley is to marry their cup progress with improvement in the league.
“The league programme is a little bit up and down,” he admitted. “We should have more points on the board since we’ve been here, a couple of draws should have been wins in my opinion.
“This club has been geared up to be successful – and it’s been successful – and whatever game we go into, we’ll do all we can to win that game.
“Whatever competition we’re in, we’ll do all we can to win that competition, so hopefully we can do that in this competition.”