AFTER finishing the last seven minutes of City's Carling Cup match against Sunderland last night in goal, Canary striker Cody McDonald says he won't be fighting for the gloves again any time soon.
An 83rd minute collision between Norwich's goalkeeper Ben Alnwick and Sunderland forward Frazier Campbell resulted in both players leaving the pitch through injury. With City's Michael Spillane sent off for his challenge on Campbell ahead of the collision and boss Paul Lambert having used all three substitutions, it was left to the 23-year-old to step into the breach and between the sticks for the home side.
And McDonald confirmed it was the first time this had happened in his career: "Yes especially at this level of football anyway. Obviously it was a bit of a tough situation for the team to be in anyway so someone's got to do it unfortunately.
"Me and Chris (Martin) said it would be better for one of the top two to go in goal, so I stepped forward out of the two of us as I don't mind going in goal - it's just one of those things.
City were knocked out of the Carling Cup by Steve Bruce's Sunderland 4-1 on the night, but McDonald believes the Canaries can take positives from the game even though at times the Black Cat's Premier League class showed.
"The game was the disappointing thing," he said. "But we've got to just look at the next one now and hopefully make it better.
"I thought we got off to a bright start until the first goal. We played some nice football and probably were equal on chances, but unfortunately it's just one of those things where the gap did just show just a little bit towards the end and we were on the wrong side of it.
"We've got to stop conceding these sloppy goals and if we do that against a team of Sunderland's quality you're going to get punished more than the teams would in League One."
The first job for the stand-in stopper had been to face an Andy Reid free-kick, the Irishman already having scored two of Sunderland's four goals. The City wall blocked the winger's effort only for Carlos Edwards rebounded long range shot to cannon off McDonald's crossbar. A near miss for the former Dartford striker who takes no credit for the well-positioned defensive wall: "If I'm being honest I didn't really know what I was doing but I got them as close to the post as I could. I was a bit nervy on the goal-kicks as well, but it's just one of those things."
NASTY COLLISION: City on-loan 'keeper Ben Alnwick
receives treatment to a facial injury
Ben Alnwick suffered a facial injury from his collision with Campbell, which will be assessed ahead of City's league trip to Hartlepool United on Saturday, August 29 (3pm). But McDonald was keen to stress when asked by reporters, if the on-loan goalkeeper was unavailable he won't be fighting Declan Rudd or Michael Theoklitos for the 'keepers jersey Saturday: "Definitely not no! I think Declan and Mickey will have something to say about that."
For more reaction to last night's Carling Cup match against Sunderland - including full interviews with Cody McDonald and City boss Paul Lambert log on to Canaries Player.
