Dunston UTS: Fed aim to avenge play-off heartache says boss Jon McDonald

By Mark Carruthers

Dunston UTS boss Jon McDonald has set his sights on making one last push to promotion and moving on from last season’s NPL East play-off heartache.

Despite striker Jack Maskell scoring a hat-trick and leading for a total of 90 minutes in an eight-goal play-off final clash with Stockton Town, Dunston came out on the wrong end of a penalty shoot-out after 120 minutes of intoxicating action.

The disappointment enveloped the club for weeks afterwards – but has now been swept aside as McDonald’s side prepare for another tilt at the playoffs after securing second place in the East Division table.

A last gasp goal from substitute Dan Turner helped Dunston see off Emley in the East Division play-off semi-final in midweek and that set up Saturday’s home final with Stocksbridge Park Steels.  Now, 12 months of from their Stockton agony, McDonald and his players are just 90 minutes away from potentially writing their names into the club’s history books.

Amends

Reflecting on the events of last year’s final, McDonald is hoping to ‘make amends’ for the play-off final defeat and is hopeful his players will have learnt lessons from an agonising loss.

He told The NLP: “Our performance in that playoff final, I still think about it a lot to be honest.

“The result hurt, but I thought we played really well, and obviously we came out on the wrong end of the result that day against a very good side.

“But we have that experience under our belt now, we maybe know how to handle the play-off situation, we know what it feels like and that can only stand us in good stead.

“It would be nice to make amends for what happened, but if we get there this time, we have to win.”

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Attitude

The clash with Park Steels comes just seven days after the two sides met in their final game of the regular season as the visitors secured their spot in the play-offs with a narrow win at the UTS Stadium.

However, with another sizeable crowd expected after over 900 supporters witnessed their semi-final victory, McDonald has stressed his players can rise to the occasion in what he hopes will be another memorable atmosphere on the south bank of the Tyne.

He said: “The atmosphere (on Tuesday night) was tangible, you could really sense it and this club deserves it, the people behind the scenes deserve it and I hope people come in great numbers again on Saturday and back us.

“The lads, over 42 league games and these play-off games and cup ties, it’s been a long season but they have ran through a wall for us and they deserve everybody’s support.”

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