Stevenage manager Graham Westley was pleased with his side's work-rate and appetite in this afternoon's 1-0 win over Shrewsbury, despite only showing flashes of what they're capable of.
He told us, "There was 15-20 minutes after half time where we started to look like a football team. We took the game to the opposition, attacked them as a Stevenage side does, worked the ball well, created chances and could easily have gone 2 or 3 up. But for long periods we saw young players who are playing their first league games struggling to really get into the game, struggling to deal with some of the problems they faced.
"We saw Tom Pett struggle with the defensive side of playing against Grandison. I had to shift Whelpdale there second half just to stem the tide down that right hand side, but these lads are learning.
"The thing at the moment is that so many experienced boys are sitting on the sidelines or sitting in the stands, instead of Adam or Connor learning from a Beardo or a Zola they’re learning from experience.
"There’s all sorts of development aspects going on with these lads and the thing that pleased me today was the work rate and the appetite to want to win the football match. There were a lot of blocks in there that won the game, there were a lot of runs with runners that were tracked that won the game and the workrate and appetite was right if the organisation and tactical savoir-faire isn’t where it needs to be.
For the full interview, in which GW praises new loan signing Tom Conlon's performance and looks ahead to the Bury game, sign up or login to your Boro Player account now.