Ahead of a trip to Carlisle United on Good Friday, Caretaker Manager Ian Dawes met with the local press to discuss a range of topics including the game at Brunton Park.
Dawes insists that his group of players are hungrier than ever to continue learning and improving both in training and in matches.
“We’re lucky here that we’ve got a good group of players who want to learn and that’s not just the younger players but also the senior players. They’ve got an appetite to learn and their application towards doing that has been great. It’s a new system and it might take a bit of time to perfect it but over time I’ve seen the improvement.
“The mentality of the group has pleased me the most and wanting to get on the ball and play because that’s half of the battle. Even when we do lose the ball, you need the right reaction to go and get it back.
“We’ve created some good opportunities in the last two games, some of which didn’t turn into shots on target but we’re getting into the right areas and it is positive.
“There’s different types of bravery in terms of what’s required. Bravery in terms of winning a tackle and competing in challenges but there’s also the bravery to constantly demand the ball and want the ball which is what we need to have when we want to play forward as much as we can.
“You can see with the data that we have and even just with your eyes, the lads are giving it everything they’ve got. We’ve just got to keep going and keep pushing it and you can tell the players want to keep improving. We want to get closer to putting in performances closer to a full 90 minute performance.”
Carlisle United currently occupy the 4th spot in League Two and are knocking on the door of the automatic promotion spots which Dawes sees as a challenge rather than a chore.
“I don’t see Friday as a daunting task, I see it as an exciting challenge. It’s one of those games which will test your values and your beliefs as a team and how you want to play because if you can go and do it against them then you can do it against everyone.
“They will put it on us, run hard and fight for second balls so it will test everything that we want to do. As staff and as players we are looking forward to it and it will tell us a lot about each other.”