Eric talks us through the Reserves 4-1 win against Rochdale.
"It's always nice to start a new football season with a win and I think over the full 90 minutes 4-1 was a true reflection of the game.
It took us a little while to settle down, we didn't really get to grips with it for the first 20 minutes or so, but if you look at it; I think Gary Madine was playing his first 90 minutes of the season, Grant Smith was coming back from injury, Jeff Smith and Cleveland Taylor haven't played that much game time. It was understandable it would take a little time to settle down even though we had an experienced side out.
We had an unfortunate injury to Josh Gowling early on. It looks as though he will be out for between 4-6 weeks with a broken nose. None of the officials saw the incident but these things happen. After that, with Josh going off, the back four was then very very young. We had Jonny Blake, Tom Aldred, Dan Wordsworth and Darren Campion. Darren the oldest, at just 20.
Overall it was a nice mixture, having Michael Bridges in the side, who is a top pro in my eyes. He captained the side and he helped everyone along. He encouraged and he gave out a bit of constructive criticism when it was needed. He reminded me a lot of when I first started doing the Reserve job and Kevin Gray played. It makes my life so much easier because Michael and Kevin both have dished out the constructive criticism on the pitch and I didn't have to worry, where last season we didn't' really have that sort of character in the Reserve side. Saying that I'm not saying I want Michael in the Reserve team all season, I don't. I want him out of this side and in the first team along with the fringe players.
Today though I though everyone's attitude to the game and the way we played it second half was terrific. I thoroughly enjoyed the game and I thought the players did. Gary Madine showed us again what a good prospect he is with a fantastic finish for the first. Luke Joyce, our leading scorer in the Reserves last year, popped up again in the right place at the right time. Darren Campion goes and gets his solo goal and thoroughly enjoyed it and Michael Bridges finished off with a terrific effort.
It's been a really good day for us today. Everybody has come through it ok, except for Josh. We've got people 90 minutes who haven't had that before this season. It has been an absolute disaster for Josh though, he is on the fringes of the first team and now he's going to miss between 4-6 weeks.
I thought we played some decent stuff in the second half, we passed and moved it. Chris Howarth had to help us out a couple of times with two decent saves when we got a bit sloppy at the end.
Overall though I'm thoroughly delighted with the way we started the season and lets hope we have a successful season at Reserve team level. I do think it's important that all three sides get into the habit of winning. We had a spell last season where the first team had about 5 straight wins, the Reserves had four and the Youth team had eight. It makes coming to work so much better when all your three sides are winning, so lets hope we can get into that vein again.
Rochdale had an afternoon they probably would rather forget. They were held up on the motorway through an accident and then came with an all blue strip which clashed with ours. They asked to borrow our third strip and there was no problem with that, these things happen.
It was funny because I'm so used to our Youth team playing in the deckchair strip but when they wore it I didn't recognise it as ours. I must feel at home it's the blue and white shirts.
I understand things happen on motorways and things happen with strips, we dealt with it. We had an extended warm up which must have lasted about 50 minutes, but it didn't effect us and we played very well today."
Team: Howarth, Blake, Wordsworth, Gowling, (Aldred), Campion, Taylor, G Smith, Joyce, J.Smith, Madine, Bridges. Unused subs: Mitchell, Duffy, Cook, Tinnion.
