Manager Paul Simpson confirmed that forward Omari Patrick had been removed form the action as soon as he indicated that he’d felt a tightening of the hamstring just five minutes before the break in the Papa Johns Trophy game against Fleetwood on Tuesday night.
“I’m disappointed that we’ve maybe picked up something with Omari,” he said. “I’m keeping my fingers crossed that we’ve got him off in time before there was a problem.
“He felt his hamstring tighten, we don’t want to take any risks, so we’ll see how he is tomorrow. He opened up down that left wing and, on one of a couple of occasions that he did it, he said to me that he felt something, it tightened on him.
“I told him straight away not to run, stay still and I’d get a sub ready. That’s what we did because we just can’t take chances, not with hamstrings and not with somebody like Omari.
“He’s that sort of player who is so rapid, he relies on those fast twitch fibres, so we couldn’t take chances on him.”
“I spoke to him at half-time and the end of the game and he said that he thinks he got off before there was any damage,” he added. “I’m hoping that’s all it is, but we’ll assess it and see how he is.
“Fingers crossed it’s nothing serious. We’ll monitor him closely because when it’s hamstrings you can’t take chances.
“It’ll be really disappointing if he does have to drop out because I think he’s getting better and better with games and his fitness building up. Tonight’s an accumulation too far.
“If I’m honest, if Kristian Dennis had been absolutely right he would have probably started, but I went with Omari.”
Elaborating more on the club’s current top scorer, he told us: “We’ve just got a little bit of an issue with Kristian from the weekend, so he wasn’t involved.
“It’s a case of counting heads. That’s why these games are really important because it gets everybody minutes and up to speed.
“We’ve got a good few days before we have to start worrying about Newport, the players can just focus on getting themselves rested and recovered and we’ll see how everybody is later in the week.
“Kris didn’t train on Monday or Tuesday but he’s certainly better. We’ll wait to see how he is, but the good thing is that it was nothing specific from the game, he just felt it on Monday.
“It’s just a little bit of tightness in his hamstring, we’ve no idea where it’s come from. It’s not something he’s had before. He’s getting better and better as the week’s going on and I’m really hopeful that come Thursday he’ll be fine.”
An all-action performance from Jack Stretton and Nic Bollado has thrust them into the spotlight should Patrick and Dennis be ruled out for the weekend.
“Everybody comes into our thinking because we’ve got what we have,” he commented. “We’re still struggling with injuries with Ryan Edmondson, Ben Barclay and Tobi Sho-Silva, and all three of those lads have been out on the grass today [Tuesday].
“They’ve done some work with the ball but this weekend and Tuesday will be too early for them. We’ve got to just nurse everyone through it and see how we go.
“I thought Jack Stretton was outstanding, he absolutely worked his socks off and made it difficult for their centre-backs. I thought he was a threat and had some really good strikes, particularly in the first half.
“He’ll benefit from the game. If he has to be involved on Saturday I will have absolutely no hesitation in putting him in there. I’ve brought him in to be someone who’s going to be a threat as a Number 9 for us.
“He was unlucky not to score, even though it looks like he thought he did when he wheeled away to celebrate.”
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