The Tuesday night Papa John’s Trophy group game saw the welcome return of Danny Devine to the fold, with an all-action display typifying what he brings to the squad.
Having played for just over an hour, he was replaced by Corey Whelan with all signs suggesting that his troublesome hamstring injury is now a thing of the past.
“It was good to see him out there and taking him off after 60 minutes or so was always what we’d planned to do,” Gav Skelton said. “We don’t want him to overdo it, but we did want him to get good pitch time, and he came through it.
“I thought he looked strong. We felt it’d be better to give us 60 minutes fully committed, which he has – he won a lot of second balls – rather than trying to get through 90.
“He did well, pressed the ball well, tried to open the play up with some diagonals, tried to get in the box, and he won a number of tackles. He’ll feel good, no injury or anything, and hopefully he’s back on the road to full recovery and pushing for a first team place.”
“It was also good to see Gime [Toure] out there as well,” he continued. “He’s here, he’s part of the squad, he gave us some moments there, but he has to do it consistently and he knows that.
“Gime’s part of the group and who knows, going forward, will he be involved more potentially, you don’t know.”
