The unofficial AFC Rushden & Diamonds messageboard

fentiger79 wrote:Been waiting for us to lay down a marker of intent against one of the better teams for a while now and we have delivered today. I think the Stevenson signing might just be the difference come the end of the season, very good player who will get even better with a few more games under his belt.

Yeah i agree! I said when we signed Stevenson that would make us champions. And some on here slammed me for saying it lol. But I knew what he was about and his link up play is what we needed. Oh and a bit of skill lol

Basil wrote:I thought we were excellent today, Aylesbury were good in patches, the stadium is the worst we've ever visited and the pitch wasn't much better!! Thoroughly professional performance against a good team. Only downside was the injury to Bunts - hope he's fit for Beaconsfield.

On the negative side though yet again we were involved in a skirmish at the end of the game. It may have been a horrendous late challenge on Finners (couldn't really see it from the other end of the ground) but why can't our players just walk away from these type of situations?? We were 4-2 up with seconds to go and yet we still want to get involved instead of letting the ref deal with it!!

I don't agree with this mate! I don't mind it at all because it shows that ALL our players support and protect each other! If we didn't have them characters in our squad then I don't think we would be as strong. Ask any footballer and they would say the same and want their fellow teams to protect them.

Mess with one of them and you mess with the whole squad! Keep it up guys!

What an excellent win (4-2) thought the whole squad was excellent today. I agree with Formic that MOTM Stevenson.

1st goal was weird, with it going through a hole in the net, knew it was a goal straight away.

Stevenson is proving to be a excellent buy.

Nice to see Egham and Royston lose with St Ives dropping points.

Just want to echo previous comments really. A fantastic performance and result on a shocking pitch, our winter blip appears to be well and truly behind us now and the lads should be full of confidence. We could have been out of sight by half-time if it wasn't for some top drawer saves by their centre back.

Stevenson is a real class act and I think having someone of his ability at the top of the pitch is benefitting the rest of the team greatly. I don't want to be too disrespectful to Tommy Berwick but I had been starting to get the impression that his nailed-on inclusion week-in week-out was holding the team back a little bit because he couldn't seem to form a decent partnership with anyone. Early signs are that Stevenson and Lorraine will work a treat.

Unfair to single anybody out really because there were excellent performances across the board, but i'd like to give a mention to Ollie Wilkinson who's looked infinitely better in the last 3 games than he has done at any point prior to that. Long may it continue!

Just watching MOTD, how many goals would we have scored today if we played on decent pitches like the Premiership teams?

An Aylesbury view of the match:

http://www.pitchero.com/clubs/aylesbury ... /1-1609134

Delighted to see our new striker settling in so brilliantly. To see Hoban on the bench shows just how strong our squad is going forward at the moment. The title is within our grasp...

Mal's pics are added to Ollie's report - http://www.afcdiamonds.com/aylesbury-2- ... n-diamonds

diamondsteve wrote:I don't agree with this mate! I don't mind it at all because it shows that ALL our players support and protect each other! If we didn't have them characters in our squad then I don't think we would be as strong. Ask any footballer and they would say the same and want their fellow teams to protect them.

Mess with one of them and you mess with the whole squad! Keep it up guys!

So we'll ignore the fact that that type of behaviour costs the club hundreds of pounds in fines and results in players being unavailable due to suspension.

Not to mention the poor example it sets to our young supporters.