‘Real good energy and good character’ – Newcastle Benfield assistant Ray Fuller offers verdict on big away win
Assistant manager Ray Fuller has praised the performance of Newcastle Benfield as they beat playoff hopefuls Marske United 4-2 to give Andrew Ferguson his first win as The Lions boss.
Benfield started the game well with new signing Jakub Zych scoring inside the first minute, he then added another in the half making it three goals from two games. Benfield are now two wins from two giving the new management team a dream start to life in the Benfield dugout.
Assistant manager Ray Fuller spoke with the media team after the game to discuss a big win for Benfield:
“For a first game it was a great start from one to sixteen, what we asked from them before the game was some real good energy and good character and a lot of that came out throughout the game.
“Brilliant start, first minute Zych gets us off to a really good start and Kyle gets one and lets us settle into the game. From then on, we never really looked in any sort of trouble, you can tell by around 30 minutes they made two substitutions and changed their shape because they couldn’t cope.
“3-0 and you’re thinking really good, but you can’t rest on that because they’re up there for a reason, so we had to be really good. Concede right on the stroke of half time, is it good for them or is it good for us, we come in and just regroup and refocus. I think it was better for us because we went in at halftime and came out the better side again and in the second half, we got the fourth and pretty much was okay.”
Momentum is beginning to build for Ferguson and his side and Fuller is hopeful of what they can achieve with the group of players at their disposal.
“Today, probably a lot of teams thought, Marske, new management and probably didn’t give us much hope. We’ve come here, we knew the lads already here what they’re capable of, the players that we’ve added we definitely know what they’re capable of and that mixture today has really come to the top of the pile for us.
“Tuesday, we didn’t meet everybody. We met most people on Monday, we went in and had an introduction but not everybody could’ve been there because of work. Tuesday the game got called off, so we put a spinning session on for the lads. There was 21 there in the end, that just shows that everybody wants to make an impression.
“As the weeks go on, we’ll find out who the real characters are, already you can tell who is starting to come and be the characters of the group. Some lads are quiet but that just the different types of people you come across in life, you can be someone who’s really confident and someone who’s not.
“I think football wise we knew what we were inheriting, take nothing away from what was here before. There is some very good footballers here and for whatever reason it just hasn’t worked and today it’s clicked for us and it’s worked so you just go onto the next game.”
However, as ever with Northern League football, there isn’t a big turnaround before Newcastle Benfield take to the field again. Fuller looks ahead to their away trip to Seaham Red Star.
“Today’s gone, so Tuesday we have to go again, you have to restart right from where we asked them from today.
“It will be a totally different game, different opposition. Every game is tough in this league, it was tough in the league below which we’ve just come from as a managerial group, like I said there is no easy games at this level, and you’ve got to earn the games.”