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Gethin Jones had slept for two days and pumped up his energy levels with Red Bull to get in the game mood at Cambridge United – but was left facing a long drive home after a washout at the Abbey Stadium.
The defender returned from international duty with Australia in Qatar on Monday morning and had been trying to reset the time difference to make sure he was ready to face Cambridge.
The rain had been present for an hour before kick off but Jones did not feel the game was under threat until the puddles began to appear five minutes in.
“Honestly, in the warm-up we felt good. The ball was zipping on the pitch,” he told The Bolton News.
“I’d won the toss of the coin and the wind was going the opposite way in the warm-up. I spoke to Nathan (Baxter) before we went out and he said to keep us playing that way and then five minutes into the game we played a ball forward and it had completely changed.
“It started lashing it down quickly and made it very difficult to play our normal game.
“We are devastated because this was a game in hand. It will come back quickly and we will do the job.
“Obviously we’re more gutted for the fans who came down here and supported us so well. We thank them for coming and we wanted to say thanks to them once the referee had called the game off.”
Referee David Rock called the players into the changing room for 10 minutes to allow some ground-staff to try and clear the water on the pitch.
Jones said the players had no idea if the game was to be resumed or not.
“When he said to go back into the changing room we genuinely didn’t know what was going to happen,” he said.
“We had to try and keep minds focussed. We knew it was going to be an ugly game and that we would need to change our mindset quickly.
“But the ref made the call and I think it was the right one. We look forward to coming back down and doing it all again.”
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