Town manager Kieran McKenna says one of the most pleasing aspects of Tuesday’s 1-0 win at Doncaster was seeing things which had been worked on at Playford Road being put into practice in a match.
The Blues dominated the South Yorkshiremen from start to finish and the margin of victory should have been much larger than just Tyreeq Bakinson’s 39th-minute goal.
"One of the most satisfying moments as a coach is when you’re seeing things that you’ve worked on on the training pitch, that you’ve spoken about in meeting rooms, whether that’s a team concept or even individually, when you see that coming off on the pitch,” he said.
"I thought on Tuesday night, things that we’ve wanted to implement, things that we’ve been doing well, but some things that we haven’t always been doing quite so well, we managed to see a lot of that come out on Tuesday night.
"I thought on a team level, but also individually, some individual pointers that we’re trying to work with certain players on, which people wouldn’t know about from the outside.
""When you see some of those things being put into a game and you see it helping an individual with a performance, that’s one of the most satisfying parts of the job.
"Tuesday I thought was a game where, as I said afterwards, I thought some of our movement patterns and our running off the ball and our penetration was really, really good. But also I enjoyed our intensity off the ball and our counter-pressure and our hunger to get it back, especially in the first half.
"And I also thought individually there were a few performances that probably went up a notch or two from what I’ve seen over the last five or six weeks and that’s a key part of it as well.
"As well as improving the team, if we can improve individual players, if we can try and help players bring their game to another level and get another five per cent out of everyone, then it will help the team on the whole.
"It’s mostly about seeing the things that you’ve worked on and spoken about coming out on the pitch, that’s most pleasing.”
McKenna switches his front three on a match-by-match basis and knows that players will naturally want to play every match.
"That’s normal for footballers. In any given week they all want to play every game. Of course, a game like Saturday, they’ll all want to play.
"It’s just about being very open with that communication and dialogue with them as a group to start with to just let them know that we’re going to need the squad to the end of the season, we’re going to need healthy competition in each position and everyone’s going to have a part to play.
"Very often in football, for the players who haven’t played so much, when you feel like you’re not having a big part to play in the team, that’s very often when an injury or a suspension comes along and all of a sudden you’re thrust into the middle of it.
"It’s very much about reinforcing to the squad that it’s a squad game now. It’s about the 22 or the 24, not about the XI.
"Even when you’re not playing or not starting a game, it’s about how you contribute if you’re on the bench, or if you’re not on the bench it’s about how you contribute to training and how you contribute to the environment here and still give a positive energy and still compete and still train well.
"It’s very important that everyone knows that they’re an important member of the squad, whether they’re starting games or not.
"And it’s about communicating individually with players, making sure that they all know where they’re at, they’re getting feedback regularly in terms of what they’re doing well, what they’re contributing to the team, but also what they need to improve and what we want to see more from them going forward.
"That’s important for the starters, of course, but also it’s very important for the ones who haven’t played as many minutes that they feel like they’re still getting feedback, they’re still being watched and we’re still trying to develop and work with them on their game as well.”