THE ending of Saturday’s game at Gillingham remains extremely disappointing but I have to say the response of the players has been first class this week.

There’s still a real buzz about the place and we’re looking forward to the visit of Rochdale.

Hopefully the breaks will start to go our way soon too because we’ve now played two teams who have been at the top of the league this season and both times we’ve been left cursing our luck.

In the first of those games, at Burton, we lost to a shot that wasn’t even on target and then on Saturday, at Gillingham, we were done by a cross that was on target.

It was frustrating because it seemed as though we were going to win the game at the weekend.

We looked like a team grinding out a result away from home at the league leaders.

It wasn’t a great spectacle but the 1,300 fans we had there will agree with me when I say it would’ve been a fantastic three points.

Unfortunately, a late cross from close to the half-way line ended up in the back of our net but I’ll take responsibility for that.

As a defender you have to be brave and you have to be on the front foot.

It’s the same as a goalkeeper and I want Dan Bentley to command his box which is what he was in the process of doing on Saturday.

MAC REWARDED MY FAITH

After the problems we’ve had and he’s had as well it was great to see Stephen McLaughlin scoring at Gillingham.

The virus he had lasted an awful long time and took a lot out of him too.

He missed out on some fitness work but he’s through that now and it was a great finish from him too.

He was chosen ahead of Kevan Hurst, Myles Weston and Dave Worrall and with that in mind he would have seen I have faith in him.

He rewarded me with that goal but any player who gets a start has to do enough to keep the shirt and I think Stephen did enough for that to happen.

YOUTH TEAMS SHOW CLUB IS ON UP

THINGS are moving in the right direction at the football club.

The under-18s are doing well are looking forward to the FA Youth Cup. They look as though they will add to the under-21s for next year which is good news.

The ones who are on the periphery of the first team squad – and perhaps even one or two from the under-18s – might just get an airing in the FA Cup or the JPT.

I want to win both games but it might be an opportunity for us to have a look at one or two.

However, I don’t want to do what Arsenal did at Sheffield Wednesday and weaken the team out of sight.

UNDER 21S SHOWING CAMARADERIE

THE under-21s picked up a good 1-1 draw at Luton this week.

It’s very much Dave Robertson’s team and his baby but I want them to have a definitive game plan.

There will be the odd occasion when we have people coming back from injury such as Kevan Hurst, Stephen McLaughlin or Adam Thompson that they will need to play.

But I don’t want to flood it with first team players.

I want it to be an under-21 side and they are starting to get that camaraderie you need. Dave’s encouraging that and they showed it against a very strong Luton team.

Their team had eight or nine first team players in and our youngsters stuck at it to get a point.

Dave was eulogising about several individual performances but it was a collective spirit that got the point.

Jason Williams got another goal and he’s close to breaking through now.

OUR DAY AT THE RACES

We haven’t had a day’s rest for a long time but Chelmsford City race course have tied in with the club and we all went down there yesterday, which was great.

It was a big meeting, we all had a bite to eat and everything was finished by 4.30pm so the lads were all tucked up in bed on time!

I’m a fan of horse-racing myself and used to be quite involved in it.

I didn’t ever learn my lesson though, I just ran out of money!

I had horses with Sam Allardyce and with my old chairman at Hull, Paul Duffen before eventually going on my own.

I had three horses but it’s a very expensive game and I won’t be going back into that again!

GREAT TO HAVE JUNIOR BLUES IN

IT was great to have the Junior Blues in to watch us training this week.

It was a lovely day, we had around 200 kids watching and the lads really stepped up because of it. They were playing in front of a crowd and really responded to that.