Darren Sarll says he was proud of his players after they came back from behind to win all three points at Crawley Town.
The home side had been in superb form at the Checkatrade Stadium but Sarll says his team were well worthy of the win, despite having to wait until the dying minutes.
“I thought we played OK first half. I thought we were better than Crawley and I don’t mean that disrespectfully. I just thought we had more goalmouth incidents than they did and our possession was OK. Still, at half time I said to the players that we have to improve.
“I thought the second half performance was terrific and so many times my players have been labelled a little bit soft or not having that strength in their mentality… I am really proud of the players today.”
Boro restricted Crawley to very few shots on goal and despite conceding a first half penalty, Sarll was delighted with how the team defended throughout the match.
“They were persistent, they were resilient and they were robust. I thought it was as good a defensive performance as we have had. Ogilvie, King, Wilkinson, Franks – all of them. Jones was pretty much a spectator and Charlie Lee in front there was fabulous again.
“I thought the attitude of the team defensively was spot on, absolutely spot on. I was thoroughly pleased with the way they went about it.”
The day’s hero though was once again Matt Godden, popping up with both goals late in the game and Sarll shared details of a meeting they had earlier in the week.
“Persistence has been part of Matt’s life, I think. He got into the pro game late through desire and work ethic and he had to come out and then he has come back in.
“I sat with him before the game with some footage and I just said to him ‘look at the library that you have now developed in the last eight months that you can show in league football’.
He said ‘I completely forgot a lot of that’, and if he didn’t come away from that little one-to-one brimming with confidence and brimming with belief, then he never will.
“Some of his work is fantastic, absolutely fantastic and you don’t see the thousands and thousands of kilometres he covers in order for Stevenage to win on a Saturday.
“I love it when we win and I love it when we can celebrate with our supporters, who again, were absolutely fantastic.”
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