I said before the opening game at Salisbury that I wouldn’t be too disappointed with a draw up there. It was one of those games that could have gone either way: in the end a draw was a fair result. I put Lee Farrell on from the start and he put a good shot in early on which the keeper saved with his fingertips - he’d had a good pre-season, so I wanted to give him a chance, especially since Siggy (Jean-Michel Sigere) and Jamie Cade had only played the equivalent of a game and a half each. We started dominating the game in the second half, but they got a penalty against the run of play. Wilko (goalkeeper Paul Wilkinson) was indecisive. He came out, then went back again then came out again and fouled their striker. It was only a yellow because the guy was going away from goal. They scored the penalty and suddenly we had it all to do.

I made two changes and it made a difference straight away. I took off Lee Farrell and Jay Saunders and brought on Simon Wormull and Siggy, neither of whom were fit enough yet to play a full game. We immediately started passing better, and we had a little spell in which we made several good chances. We’ve been working a lot on counter-attacking in training, and I was very pleased with our equaliser. It came from a three-pass movement: Wormull found Boothy (Paul Booth) with a long pass, Siggy ran in and knocked in the cross. It’s nice to see something you’ve worked on pay dividends. There were a few chances either end after that, and Wilko redeemed himself with a brilliant point-blank save. We played OK, we didn’t play particularly well. Even so they were saying afterwards that we were the best side they’d played there in years. (continued overleaf)...