Tuesday, 7th October 2008

Manager's Notes

27th September 2008
Gary Norton

Good afternoon everyone and welcome back to the Moat Ground for today's clash against Loughborough Dynamo in the UniBond First Division South.

As usual, we welcome all connected with our opposition and hope that they enjoy their short stay with us in South Derbyshire.

Tuesday nights performance against Leek Town was a excellent example of what the team can achieve when we get things right.

The individual errors, poor finishing and discipline that had cost us a better chance of picking up results in some of our previous games were not evident as the team went on to put on an excellent performance to put us through to the next round of the Presidents Cup.

The only negative on this night was that it wasn't a league match.

The all round good performance on Tuesday was pleasing for all involved because we know what we are capable of but haven't performed consistently enough in games.

Consistency individually and collectively is the key and that is something that Tony, Dave, Gary and I working hard to achieve with the squad of players we have at our disposal.

All players at this level of football will make mistakes but what we are trying to eliminate (or at the very least minimise) the basic mistakes that will tend to cost us dearly.

If we can do this then we have a good chance of competing with most, if not all sides in this league on our day.

That result and performance will mean little if we cannot carry the good work into today's game against a very good Loughborough side promoted from the midland Alliance last season.

The have started life well in the UniBond and have some accomplished players within their ranks. Going into today's game they sit in 7th place but are just a couple of points ahead of us having played the same amount of games. Lets hope for another entertaining affair.

A quick mention to the Youth, Reserve and A sides who have all enjoyed good starts to their respective seasons.

It is early days yet but the signs in all three sides are good and I hope that continues to be the case. Mark Harrision has asked me to increase my involvement with all of the clubs feeder sides this season and whilst I am finding the extra responsibility very challenging from a time perspective im hoping that the other three sides at the club feel part of the club a little more than they have been in the past.

The youth team play their matches midweek so its easy for me to get to a few of their games but unfortunately the Reserve and A Sides play on Saturdays and have few midweek games so its obviously not as easy to keep tabs on their progress.

There are one or two good players already starting to come through and Mathew Weightman is a good example of the talent we have.

The 17year old striker is playing in both our youth and reserve sides and has impressed us enough for us to contract him to the club. He will train as regularly as he can with the first team and we will keep a close eye on his progress this season.

Hopefully Mat signing a first team deal will inspire a few of the other lads into pushing themselves towards the squad during the rest of this season.

Jamie Hood starts the first game of his 3 match suspension today whilst Barry Woolley is continuing his road to recovery from his dislocated shoulder. Hopefully we will see him back in a Rovers shirt in just a few short weeks.

Enjoy the game today.

Gary

Previous "Manager's Notes"

Rovers In Another Cup Exit

Boston Too Strong For Youth Team

Salford Pre-Match News

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Glapwell

This evening, 7.45pm
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View previous encounters with Glapwell