ADAM Murray praised the ‘mental output’ of his Kidderminster Harriers side following the club’s upset win against Halifax Town in the FA Trophy.
Harriers stunned the National League side to reach the quarter-finals of the competition with a dramatic penalty shootout victory at the Shay following a 1-1 draw in regulation time.
Kidderminster have reached the quarter-finals of the FA Trophy for the first time since the 2009/10 season.
And Harriers boss Murray praised his side’s mental toughness to come from behind and eventually triumph on penalties.
Murray said: “It was another opportunity for us to show what a good team we can be.
“The players executed the gameplan absolutely perfectly. We controlled the whole game.
“The response after [conceding an early goal] was amazing. I’m over the moon.
“It was a really tough challenge so for us to come here and take a win, the performance was top drawer.
“For us to stay mentally switched on for 90-odd minutes and keep ourselves in the game was outstanding.
“It wasn’t just a big technical, tactical and physical output, there was a massive mental output [in the performance].”
Halifax broke the deadlock on 12 minutes when David Kawa cut the ball back to Kieron Morris from the left and the latter placed a first time shot high into the net from 12-yards out.
However, Harriers equalised nine minutes from time when Joe Foulkes diverted Reece Devine’s cross from the left into the bottom left corner from six-yards out.
The game went straight to penalties only for Amari Morgan-Smith to see his spot kick saved after Will Harris blasted Halifax into the lead.
However, Dibble then denied Shaun Hobson from the spot while David Davis’s penalty slipped through the gloves of Halifax goalkeeper Sam Johnson.
Dibble made another save as he kept out Adam Adetoro’s tame penalty before Devine scored to put Harriers ahead in the shootout.
Both teams scored their remaining two penalties as Foulkes sent Johnson the wrong way with the final spot kick to send Harriers through to the quarter-finals.
And Murray praised the mindset of his players to recover from the setback of missing their first penalty.
Murray added: “We’ve spoken about having an elite mindset a lot.
“And an elite mindset comes with a lot of things, setbacks is one. When you take a punch in the chops you’ve got to make sure you stay focused and go again.
“We missed a penalty but then you watch the reaction when he goes back into the lads and that’s what a skipper does, he gets his boys together and pushed them on to finish the job.
“The nerves and the calmness from the boys at the end to finish it off was top drawer.
“If it goes to a shootout, he’s [Christian Dibble] one of the main reasons we feel confident because he’s outstanding at what he does.”
Kidderminster are next in action against Macclesfield on Tuesday, February 3 with kick-off at 7.45pm at Moss Rose.
