BOSS Brendan Kelly believes Bromsgrove Sporting’s ‘gutsy’ 2-1 victory over Yaxley will stand them in good stead for the rest of the season.
The Rouslers make the trip to North Leigh on Saturday looking to make it back-to-back wins in Southern League Division One Central and boss Brendan Kelly is hoping the character shown in the success over Yaxley last Saturday is used as a yardstick.
“The big test was seeing if the lads had the character to get back to winning ways in the league and they showed they had it,” he said.
“As we go through the season and when the chips are down, I’ll be looking back at the win over Yaxley as a huge turning point for our character in terms of what is needed in games when things are not going our way.
“After the heavy defeats to Bedford and Corby we re-evaluated our expectations so we’ll take each game as it comes.
“However, there are plenty of points up for grabs which are certainly there for the taking in the next ten games.”
It looked as though it would be another difficult day for Sporting last Saturday when they fell behind after just five minutes when Yaxley striker Daniel Cotton found the back of the net with a lovely lob over keeper Dan Crane.
However, Sporting were not behind for long as Jason Cowley equalised for the hosts 11 minutes later with a wonderful curling effort from the edge of the area.
Six minutes into the second half Sporting were awarded a penalty after Cowley was brought down in the area, with Richard Gregory smashing home from 12 yards to notch his tenth goal of the league campaign.
Sporting’s job to walk away with the three points was made harder with 25 minutes to go when Charlie Dowd was sent off after picking up a second yellow card for a needless challenge on the near side.
However, Kelly’s men held firm to claim a valuable three points.
“After going a goal down I was absolutely fuming because I told the lads before the game to take our chances and defend well in the first ten minutes so we had something to build from, but we didn’t do that,” said Kelly.
“However, we managed to turn things around and even though we were up against it for the final 25 minutes, the lads defended really well.
“We were resolute and showed good discipline in terms of keeping our shape, not getting dragged about and creating gaps.”
