Connah’s Quay Nomads set record straight after media report confusion

Connah’s Quay Nomads have released the following statement in the aftermath of Thursday’s 1-0 Europa League defeat to Dinamo Tbilisi…..

Following Thursday night’s fixture against Dinamo Tbilisi in the UEFA Europa League, the club would like to make an official statement regarding media reports following on from the game.

Ahead of kick off, it was public knowledge that we had received three positive Covid tests with one additional player showing symptoms with all four being immediately self-isolated.

On Thursday, our backroom staff worked diligently alongside Public Health Wales, FAW and UEFA to ensure that the fixture would go ahead with all three governing bodies acknowledging that the club had followed all required protocol.

This included all of our available matchday squad and staff completing the industry recognised Benchmark54 App before midday of the game which asks an 11 question questionnaire regarding health and Covid symptoms – all of these came back negative.

Additionally, everyone was temperature checked upon arrival at the stadium.

In a post-match interview with various media outlets, manager Andy Morrison used the term “turned a blind eye” which has unfortunately been misconstrued by many to mean that as a club we ignored Covid regulations.

We would like to go on record and say that this is categorically untrue and that what the manager was referring to was a number of players who may not have played had we had a fully fit squad.

Morrison clarified this in a tweet on his own personal Twitter account, indicating that a number of players had suffered from isolated pre-match upset stomach and headaches likely down to nerves due to being thrust into the starting lineup.

We would like to note that the BBC Sport Wales article reported on Thursday night contains factually incorrect details as they have claimed that we had four players test positive when in reality we had three players test positive and an additional one player needing to self-isolate despite testing negative – our medical staff felt he should self-isolate despite the negative test to ensure the safety of everyone involved.

Additionally, we had one player out with injury and one player out with a non-Covid related illness.

This was no more prevalent than during the match itself when it was clear to see that Lewis Brass suffered a head injury which required glue and strapping at half time, whilst Jamie Insall needing assistance to leave the pitch having suffered a groin injury late in the second half – an indication of the lengths that our players were willing to go to, ensuring that we represented the Cymru Premier and Wales as a country to the highest regard in the competition.

Despite the defeat, we feel that the effort shown by everyone involved was one that we should all be extremely proud of.

We would like to thank everyone at Wrexham AFC, Public Health Wales, UEFA and Football Association of Wales for their assistance in ensuring that we could carry out Thursday night’s game and not forgetting our own staff in the shape of club secretary Tom Houghton, physio Gemma Bamford and Doctor Chris Jordan who were all working diligently and outstandingly yesterday to ensure the safe running of the match.