Confident Collins' Cambridge penalty conversion was never in doubt
Goal-scorer Aaron Collins spoke after his last-ditch penalty secured a point for MK Dons at Cambridge
There were no nerves from Aaron Collins as he stepped up to slot home MK Dons’ dramatic stoppage time equaliser against Cambridge on Saturday.
The Welshman came off the bench, having missed the last two after suffering an ankle injury against Newport, to fire in from the penalty spot to secure a point against the promotion chasing U’s in front of more than 1,000 travelling supporters.
While a nervous hush fell over the Abbey Stadium as Collins stepped up deep into stoppage time, he admitted he was confident he would find the back of the net.
“I felt alright!” he said. “I’m confident, I want to take penalties and you have to be confident to do that. I let the keeper dive, put it in the other corner, cut off and celebrated!
“I’ll always put my hand up if I’m on the pitch, I’m always ready to step up and take my chance. I’m confident I’ll score them.
“If it’s earlier in the game, we get the ball and run it back and go to try and win it. But the fans dominated the stadium this afternoon, so I was straight over there to celebrate with them at the end. That’s what it’s about isn’t it.”
The close encounter pitched second and third in League Two, but the sides fairly cancelled each other out at the Abbey, with neither really gaining the upper hand over the other. Dons though had comfortably the better chances, with Jon Mellish and Rushian Hepburn-Murphy missing excellent opportunities to open the scoring in the first-half, before Joe Tomlinson and Curtis Nelson were denied as they chased an equaliser after Shayne Lavery’s 76th minute opener.
While feeling Dons deserved all three points for their efforts on the day, Collins said coming away with a point against their automatic promotion rivals is a big confidence boost.
He said: “It’s a big point, we wanted all three but it’s a point at the end of the day. To get the penalty to make it 1-1, we haven’t lost any ground on them. It’s a big point in the right direction.
“We all knew it was a big game today. I think we looked solid. We got unlucky with the scrappy goal they scored, and we got unlucky we didn’t get a scrappy goal just before the penalty.
“At this point in the season, it’s all about confidence. With 12 games to go, if Cambridge had got the win, they’d be five points clear of us, they’d be ready to go. And we know what that momentum can be. Now we can go into next week looking to build and chase the top two.
“We always create chances, we’re good going forwards but it was unfortunate. Rush is kicking himself, he wanted to take that chance like he did on Monday. Today, he missed it but we all miss chances.
“If we put the ball in the back of the net every time, we’d be in the Prem! We know if we took a 1-0 lead, it would be a completely different game.”