Under 18s coach Simon Wiles spoke to the club after his side beat Premier League side Crystal Palace 2-1 at Highbury on Friday.
The young Cods repeated history on Friday as they managed to beat a category one academy at home in the third round of the FA Youth Cup, with Covy Smith bagging a brace on the night.
Here’s what Simon had to say after the game:
On the result…
“We’re absolutely delighted with the result; the players conducted themselves perfectly. Everything about the performance was perfect, the intensity levels were fantastic, and we have thoroughly deserved the win tonight.
“We had to be at our best with really high-intensity levels and every player did their job especially the defence, all of the lads are confident in the defence to fulfil their roles and there were only a few chances Crystal Palace really threatened us.
“We always want to make Highbury a tough place to come, we have the ability to play against the best teams and we have the attitude to compete, we have the canvas in this competition to achieve that.
“We’d love to go one better than last years’ fourth-round finish, we were unfortunate last season away at Millwall and we’re looking forward to the draw because we’ll play anyone.”
On the attitude of the lads…
“To beat a Category One academy as a Category Three and to make the 90 minutes as challenging and difficult as we can, and I thought we executed our game plan to perfection.
“The fact this is a team with new players embedded into it, the way some of the boys have adapted to themselves is every credit to themselves and every credit to especially Johnathon Borwick who had to come in between the sticks when Eastham went off injured.
“Us as the staff, we’re always making sure the players are mentally prepared when they get their chance to be involved and when Johnathon came on, he was up to the task which is testament to him, and he helped us win the game.
“Even though we conceded it’s really good for the experience to have these learning opportunities to see out the game but as a whole were very difficult to break down, some of our decision making was spectacular and our backline dealt with everything and as a full 11 it was a really exciting performance.”