Whilst the Reds are naturally disappointed to have exited the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy at the regional quarter final stage, there is perhaps a glimmer of positivity in the stated aim of Smoulderwood for us to never be involved in the much-maligned competitition again! I was quite against the idea of the possibility of the JPT sharing space in our more illustrious trophy cabinent, but I must admit it did win me around for this season at least, and could have given some of our younger fans a taste of the kind of days out that we used to have in better times.
Smoulds told the official Forest website: “We had a chance to go and win this competition, which would have been great because I’m hoping this is a competition we won’t have to play in again. No-one will remember this is if we get promoted but I’m not going to start using that as an excuse. We’re disappointed and you could see that on the players’ faces at the end. We’ve got the consolation that we haven’t dropped league points ? but it doesn’t lessen the sense of disappointment in our dressing room at the moment.”
He’s done a pretty good job of reading the ‘sensible things for a manager to say in the light of a cup exit’ handbook before facing the media, or maybe he is just sensible, but his attitude here is pretty much spot on for me. The cup gave an opportunity not only for silverware, or at least tinware, it also gave us an opportunity to give fringe players a run out – which allowed us to experiment as well as hopefully try to keep squad morale higher.
The other big positive to come out of the game was Wes Morgan getting a goal, after a series of good performances at the back, is nice to see Big Wes starting to show the promise he did earlier in his Forest career – and a gashed head wasn’t going to stop him either as he almost added to his tally on the evening!
It has also perhaps highlighted a need for us to work on our penalty taking; although Sammy and Nicky converted theirs – Grant Holt’s miss was a bit embarrassing – and well, Kris was unlucky as Basso did well to save it, so maybe it’s not so bad – perhaps Lester was up to take the fifth it it was needed, I reckon he would’ve spooned it into the Bristol fans 
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