On a memorable evening at the Phllips 66 Community Stadium, Paul Holleran gave us his thoughts after Leamington won their first game of the season against Brackley Town....
Manager’s Reaction
Putting the 500th game to one side, it was a nice occasion but you know what’s coming with Brackley, they’ve recruited well in the summer. We knew we’d have to probably sacrifice a bit of space in the first half as they’ve got such clever players, Shane Byrne, Carl Baker - they move you about well, pass the ball well. We dealt with most of it, got some great blocks in when we had to, and then the key thing was on the changeover, trying to be a threat on the counter attack and get our wide men into the game. It was hard in the first half because of the pace of the game but we’ve defended our box well, used the ball ok, and obviously set plays we’ve looked a threat. That was something we worked on last week with this game in mind, trying to just get the ball as quickly as we could in and around the box with the targets we’ve got, and it’s paid dividends - we’ve scored a goal and nearly made it 2-0 at the end of the first half. Second half it was a real National League North game, it opened up a bit. It was end to end and I just think that then we used our counter attacking threat well, we passed the ball better, got our wide men into the game.
‘Goals win games. They’ve had a couple of chances to make it 1-1, we’ve had a few chances as well. You just don’t know which way it’s going to go. We scored from a good bit of play and managed to get the second goal, and we’ve been pretty comfortable then. There were some massive, massive performances tonight.’
On his new signings:
‘Obviously towards the end of last season we had one or two short term loans, and there’s been one or two big characters gone and obviously there’s Colby (Bishop). We knew it was coming - we’d started really getting out during the second half of last season and looking at one or two players hoping to get the groundwork in.
‘They’ve all got the attributes to do well. There’s always a bit of a gamble, but they’re all young, they’re desperate to do well and they’ve got the ingredients that you look for. If you take Brackley tonight, they’ve got a lot of polished, finished players, good players, whereas we probably go for players that want to step up a level or two, so they’ve got a lot to prove and hopefully we can give them a good environment and a good grounding. There’s regular things happening here, there’s players moving, and I’m pretty sure one of them will get a move as well which would be great.
‘They’ve all gelled at the moment, there’s a good spirit. I think you saw that on Saturday at Kiddermnster - you’re really up against it and you find a way to get that equaliser. You saw it again tonight, we dug in in the first half, and then we’ve had enough quality to spring.
‘We’re delighted to get what we’ve got on board at the moment.’
