Update from Daws ahead of Barnet trip

Iron interim first team manager Tony Daws has previewed Friday night's trip to North London where the team will face Barnet in the National League.

The boss started by talking about the feeling in the camp following Tuesday's 3-1 victory over Gateshead.

He said: “It’s been good as we’ve had 48 hours or so of positivity. A win makes a lot of difference to everyone so I’m really pleased and I think we deserved it by the end of the game. It’s been a good couple of days and we’re looking forward to Barnet away now.” 

He went on to speak about the fitness of the team after that hard-fought win, stating: “There are no problems, you always get a few kicks and bruises, but everyone is alright.”

The gaffer then looked ahead to Friday's match-up and the opportunity to earn another three points. He said: “It’s not easy having two games in four days. It’ll be a difficult game because they’re a decent side. They score a lot of goals but they also concede as well.

“We’ll go down there confident because of Tuesday, and we want to try and get that first away win, so we will do everything we can to stop them from playing and try to play ourselves.” 

Daws added: “It’s a long season, there are always ups and downs, and things keep changing in the league structure as the group at the bottom is very tight and it’s very close. We have to be positive as we know it’s going to be a tough match, as is Eastleigh next Tuesday. We have to go to both games and just be ourselves.

“We have to concern ourselves with how we play, make sure we play to the best of our ability, put on a good performance, and try to get a positive result.”

The Iron suffered defeat at Southend United last Saturday but the boss believes that the quick turnaround of games helped the lads to bounce back on Tuesday night. He said: “There was negativity around the players and the environment after losing 3-0 away from home, and obviously no one was happy with that including myself, but we prepared for the Gateshead game."

He continued to further analyse the Gateshead performance: “We conceded early again which is so frustrating to do, and from an individual error. We recovered well and showed resilience, and I think we could have scored even before Joe [Nuttall] did score the penalty.

“In the second half we played better and something towards what we want to be like. We were on the front foot, passing it, making good forward runs, and creating chances. It was more like the way we want to play for 90 minutes and that’s the frustrating thing as we want to be able to do that for a full match.”

See more from Tony Daws and Andrew Boyce on Iron Player.