Andy Peaks hails ‘brilliant’ Tamworth after Huddersfield upset

Tamworth manager Andy Peaks said his side’s 1-0 win against Huddersfield was just reward for their progress over the last two years.

The National League side are through to the second round after stunning League One Town 1-0 thanks to a Chris Maxwell own goal.

Peaks said: “We were looking forward to it because if you can’t enjoy nights like this, you shouldn’t be involved in football.

“Obviously the result makes it 10 times better but I wanted people to come and celebrate what we’ve done the last couple of years and this was a reward to get a tie like Huddersfield and then be on TV.

“People have said about the way we play, we play like that every game, we’ve not got loads and loads of extremely skilful players, we just work hard, we’ve got a good shape, they put a good shift in.

“I said to them before the start, whatever happens do yourself justice, don’t let it pass you by, and they didn’t, they were brilliant.”

Opposite number Michael Duff, in contrast, questioned his team’s mentality as he admitted they were beaten by the better side at The Lamb Ground.

Duff said: “Not good enough. Outrun, outfought, outbattled, beaten by a better team in the end.

“Started the game really poorly, concede a goal from the obvious threat, no quality in our play, every cross went in the keeper’s hands.

“We’ll be all over the papers tomorrow for all the wrong reasons. I said to the players in the meeting room, ‘make sure your heads are right’, and they clearly weren’t.

“There’s no excuses. We’ve played three different formations, we’ve had a lot of the ball but not sure the keeper has made enough saves, and if we’d have started the game like we did from the 80th minute onwards we’d have been all right, but we didn’t.”