Yeovil Town boss Mark Cooper said he will not get carried away his side’s position at the top of the National League South table.
A double from Rhys Murphy and another from Jordan Young earned a 3-1 home win over Aveley and lifted the Glovers to the summit with early season pace-setters Bath City and Taunton Town both dropping points on Saturday.
Speaking to BBC Somerset’s Sheridan Robins after the match, the boss said he was pleased to hear the Thatcher’s Stand at Huish Park burst in to a rendition of “we are top of the league” towards the end of the match.
He said: “We have been really strong at home and hopefully the crowds will continue to grow and we can keep sending them home happy.
“If you are to be a successful team, you need a really strong home record and we have one at the minute.
“Being top is great, but you don’t expect me to get carried away, do you? The challenge now is to stay there for as long as we possibly can.”
Having raced in to a 2-0 lead with goals from Murphy and Young, Yeovil added a third just before the break and Cooper said he was pleased to see what the squad had practiced in training come to the fore.
He said: “The most pleasing thing as a coach or manager is when the stuff you work on in the week comes to fruition and a lot of the stuff (you saw today) was stuff we worked on. So I was really pleased for the players that it reinforces what they were shown.
“We worked on the two wide boys and the reason I played Dawesy was his pace, but he’s been out with glandular fever and you could see after 50 minutes he had completely gone. But we managed to pin them back with the two wide boys.
“The only disappointing thing was we should have been four or five up by half-time and then the game is definitely over, but at 3-0 one goal changes it and that is what happened to a certain degree.”
The manager reserved praise for Dawes, playing his first National League South match having been missing through illness in recent weeks. The former Stratford Town player was at the heart of the side’s scintillating first half display before being replaced by Jordan Maguire-Drew after an hour.
Picture courtesy of Iain Morland.
Of Dawes, Cooper said: “He was very good, I was very pleased with his performance. With the way we are playing with the box in midfield, the two central midfield players and the two really wide wingers, they need to be quick to affect the game when they get one-v-one and Dawesy with his pace and trickery and he used it really well.”
Having got his two goals, Murphy was replaced by Jake Hyde in the 74th minute which the manager said was a deliberate plan with next weekend’s FA Cup fourth qualifying round tie against Southend United in mind.
He said: “I promised Rhys and Jake Hyde that I would try and manage (their minutes) and make them more available for more games than they have ever been before.
“They have not played a lot of football in the last two years and I said when they signed that if we could get Murph and Hyde on the pitch enough times, they will score goals.
“To sacrifice Murph for 25 minutes is much more valuable than him getting an extra goal and making sure he is fit for next week.”
On the Cup tie, Cooper added: “It is a free hit for us. We have had two games (in the FA Cup) when we are expected to win and now we have got one where we are playing a team which has just been saved, their fans will be in such a joyous state and we have to fight that because that will give their players energy.
“But there’s no pressure on us, we can go out and play like we did today we will cause them problems.”
You can listen to the full interview with Sheridan here:
As is the way this season, Cooper spoke separately to the club’s official YouTube channel after the match and here is that interview…..