Captain’s Column

I THINK Saturday’s going to be a really tough test.

They’re a massive club, with a really experienced manager. They romped the league last year and it seems like they’ve taken to this level again like a duck to water.

I’ve spoken to a few of my mates who’ve played against them already this season, and they’ve said they’re a really good side.

It’ll show us where we are but we’ll go into the game confident after Tuesday.

I didn’t see the game at Bromley but the impression I got was that it wasn’t up to the standard required.

We had a chat this week and we knew what needed to be done to put it right.

I thought everyone worked their socks off. Sutton’s a really tough place to go, so to get three points there shows great character.

I thought Josh Staunton and Nathan Clarke were unbelievable at centre-back, Jaco Hanson coming into the team was different class, so was Michael Duckworth, and Jack Earing coming off the bench. You can go through the whole team.

Collectively, we stood up to be counted and thoroughly deserved the three points.

It’s positive times at the club at the minute and Tuesday night echoed that.

We will get beaten well again this season, that’s the nature of the beast. But it’s how quickly you can come back from those games that structures your season.

The top teams will come out the other side a bit quicker than everyone else. But that’s something we’ve done well this season.

We’re up there for a reason, it’s no fluke now after this many games.

Let’s embrace it and have a really good crack at it.

I’m well ahead of schedule with my injury. I’ve flown through everything.

I’ve held onto a lot of strength from the last time I did it and by doing everything a bit more patiently this time, I’m reaping the rewards of that.

I won’t be involved on Saturday but we’ve got a behind-closed-doors game on Wednesday and I’m hoping to get some minutes in that.