Jimmy Quinn hailed his players for the "magnificent achievement" of finishing second in the Blue Square Premier and is looking forward to playing Burton Albion in the semi-finals.
"I'm proud of the team today. For a game when you could say we didn't need the points I thought they went out and put in a good performance," commented the U's boss, who made seven changes to the side that beat Torquay on Tuesday.
"I rested a few today but the other lads came in and it's nice for one or two of them to get through 90 minutes because you don't know what's going to happen. You can pick up injuries in training so it was nice to rest a few and it was nice to get a good result against one of my old teams.
"I said to the players before the game it would be a magnificent achievement if we finished second in the league," he added. "We heard that Torquay were losing 1-0 early doors so I told them at half-time we just need to up the ante a little bit, and to be fair we could have scored another three or four goals."
Quinn reserved special mentions for Robbie Willmott and Magno Vieira.
18-year-old Willmott made his full debut today and seemed to get stronger and grow in confidence as the game progressed, while Vieira signed off his loan spell with both goals: "Young Robbie is still learning the game and it's a learning curve for him, but you can see with his pace he's going to cause problems to teams and he did ever so well.
"I'm very pleased for 'Mags' today; I thought he deserved his goals and worked very hard. He caused them problems and made some terrific runs to get up the sides of their centre backs.
"Big Lee McEvilly needed the time on the pitch for his fitness," Quinn said of the striker who continued his comeback from injury with his first start since mid-March. "You can see he's been out for a while and I just asked him to work hard and build up his fitness levels, so it's all coming together nicely."
Exeter City's equaliser to make it 4-4 at Burton Albion deep into stoppage time ensured that Nigel Clough's side dropped to fifth place and will provide United's semi-final opposition.
United took four points off the Brewers this season, including a win at the Pirelli Stadium, and Quinn commented, "They're going to be two tough games but they don't have to be pretty. It's about getting results and let's hope we can do it for our magnificent fans - they were brilliant today.
"Burton will know we won there this season but they're more than capable on the day of getting results, like we are, so it's going to be a tough one but you wouldn't expect anything less. I'll do my job between now and then to make sure the lads are prepared and relaxed and focused to go out and get a couple of results that we need.
"Nigel came to our place and he only played one up front and nicked a draw, and we went there and beat them," concluded Quinn. "We've got players who have the right blend of experience and it will be a magnificent achievement to get to the final."
The U's travel to fifth-placed Burton Albion for the first leg of the play-off semi-final on Friday evening, 2nd May. The match is due to kick-off at 7.45pm, with the return leg at the Abbey Stadium on Tuesday 6th May, with a kick-off time provided by the Football Conference of 7.30pm. Please keep a close eye on the club website for all play-off news and updates.
[Match report] [Fixture list] [League table]
Make Your Click Count For The U's - talk about it on the Message Board!
You are respectfully reminded that any article, as with all content on this website, unless otherwise stated, is subject to copyright © and the Official Cambridge United Website must be acknowledged as the original source including all quotes.
AT080426
