There was just one change to the starting eleven at Newport on Tuesday night with fit again Danny Devine stepping into the right back position in a switch of personnel that manager Chris Beech agreed might have taken some by surprise.
“I imagine people weren’t expecting a change and, when they saw the teamsheet, I expect they thought Joe Riley was maybe going to be our right back,” he said. “I went with Danny for that role and I was pleased with both Joe and Danny’s performances.
“Danny was excellent, to be fair. He’s such a fit lad, he can spend that time he’s had out without playing as regularly as you’d like, then he comes back in and looks fine.
“He’s played full back before, he’s played League One games there for Bradford, so there was no risk in that. He was brilliant for 90 minutes, but I think in time added on he tried his best to mess that up.
“He got a couple of things wrong, but he was helped out by Callum Guy when he lost the ball in our final third. That’s good, it’s why you have team mates, it’s what they do for you.”
And on the equally impressive George Tanner, he commented: “George has been brilliant. We recruited a really good player on a two-year contract, and was storming through the first half of the season.
“He had his injury, and he’s done a bit of a stop-start-stutter since then, but I know it’s his first season. It’s the first time he has to be accountable and responsible for his actions.
“He’s not on-loan from Manchester United and playing for a Morecambe team that wasn’t doing as well as they are this season. After a defeat when he was there, which was never ok, it was a case of telling him he could go again, because he was on loan from that club.
“This is him now, it’s his first real journey where he’s being asked to do it regularly for his club. There’s a lot of understanding of teaching him of that. There are no worries from us about George.
“It was just a case of making sure we defended better than we did on Saturday from the goals we conceded, and we’ve got a squad that’s fully inclusive to achieve what we want, so we have to utilise it.
“George knows where we want him to be better, and that’s the same for every player in our squad. Sometimes you can step back and wait for it to change, and sometimes you have to make a change to make it better.
“George has been brilliant, he’ll come back, of course he will, that’s what’s great about this squad. They all back each other, they’re all in the same boat trying to achieve something that started in an out of season project when we had seven players.
“We have to keep our heads down, work hard and see what we can do. That’s all we can do.”
