Edwards playing the long game
Thursday, 26th Nov 2020Josh Edwards:- “I don’t know where the ref got five minutes of injury-time from, I remember us all shouting, ‘how are we still playing here?’!
Josh Edwards says that he and his team mates have been buzzing since their win over Hearts on Friday night and going top of the league. As a former Kilmarnock youth player Josh personally enjoyed beating Killie in the Betfred Cup but he agreed that it was the best win of the season for the team and an important marker:-
“It was definitely a big confidence boost. It shows we can definitely be a threat to them in this league. They’ve obviously got a really good squad, so I’d be surprised if they didn’t shoot up the league. But it shows we are just as good as them, if not better than them. So it’s been a good few days and we are enjoying it.
“To say we could win the league would be getting ahead of ourselves. It’s definitely too early to say that when we’ve got places like Arbroath to go to. It shows we’ve got a chance or at least we’ve got the foundations to go and push up the league and give them a run for their money anyway.”
After going two behind Hearts did not give up for any of the remaining 35 minutes. Stephen Kingsley’s 84th minute goal gave a boost to their hopes of salvaging a point. So under a lot of pressure at the end it was good for the belief that the team saw it out to earn the result. Josh described how that second half closed out:-
“It was a nervy last 10 minutes or so. I don’t know where the ref got five minutes of injury-time from, I remember us all shouting, ‘how are we still playing here?’! We were under pressure but I don’t remember them having a proper threat or a big goal-scoring opportunity even with balls coming into the box.
“I’d say it’s a big confidence boost for us, when they had forward players like Steven Naismith and Liam Boyce who have played international level, to know we kept them out at crucial points in the game.”
Above: Stevie Crawford signed Josh Edwards from Airdrieonians in July 2019
Josh Edwards has played every minute of every Dunfermline game this season so is he one of the first names on the teamsheet? Josh replied:-
“I’d like to think so! I’ve been enjoying it, I’ve felt I’ve been doing alright and the gaffer has been putting his faith in me by playing me every week. I’m happy with that. It’s me and Muz that are the only ones to do that. To be fair, in the last five minutes of the Hearts game I felt that.
“I was thinking, ‘this is long, this game!’ I just felt the game was so long that I felt like I was running about for ages! The way they were moving the ball was a lot faster than any other team we’ve played, so we were shuffling across, side to side. Maybe that was a factor in why I was absolutely blowing at the end of the game.”
Confidence and spirits in the camp are high and with players in their own squad returning from international duty - Owain Fôn Williams and Lewis Mayo - there are opportunities to tease the stars that they have come across.
“Everyone is pure buzzing. We were just talking to Fônners. He was away with Wales so we were just asking him hundreds of questions about Gareth Bale and all that. We’re always asking him, ‘how’s Bale?’ and stuff like that!
Everyone’s loving it at the minute, it’s been good.
“Owain is a really bubbly guy and loves it, talking about all this sort of stuff. He’s an international player and he believes in every single one of us, that we’re all good players and we can proper push Hearts and other teams in the league. It’s good to have that on board, that he knows we can go where we should be.”
In fairness Owain doesn’t name drop and plays it all down a bit but it doesn’t stop Josh as a long time admirer of Gareth Bale asking if there were any chances to get him a pair of the €100m man’s boots:-
“I’m sure he won’t be needing them. All the boys love talking about it. I’m not sure he’s too fond of talking about it but he’ll give us a bit.”
With a name like Edwards one might think he himself might be eligible for Wales but despite believing that his dad’s dad was from Wales, Josh couldn’t tell confessing “I’ve no idea”.
Saturday’s match at Arbroath takes the pressure off the league for a week but Josh feels that it just as important to extend the team’s unbeaten run and qualify for the quarter finals of the Betfred Cup:-
“I suppose we’ve had a really good run in the league but sometimes the cup is a nice break. Having had a big game like that, and there was a lot of pressure in that game, the cup breaks it up. We’ve got the chance to get into the quarter-final of a cup, but we’ve got Arbroath away and everyone knows what that’s all about, don’t they? It’ll be a hard one at the weekend.“
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