FROM a disastrous start to a comfortable win, Saturday’s win over Alfreton Town drew all of the qualities that are in our Blackwell Meadows locker as we brushed aside our visitors from Derbyshire.

We’ll paper over the first minute. To go behind the way we did was ridiculous. Having shipped in three poor goals on the previous Wednesday, that first minute didn’t bode well for the afternoon. Goodness knows what went through the manager’s mind. However, the response would have delighted Martin Gray as much as it did the fans. To equalise so quickly really knocked the wind out of our visitors and laid the foundation for what was a pretty decent 89 minutes.

I do wonder what would have happened if we hadn’t equalised as quickly as James Caton did, although there is little doubt that this Darlo side is once again full to the brim with goals. Meanwhile, having resembled a colander at Boston on Wednesday night, there was little doubt that Alfreton were going to have the wherewithal to withstand our attack for the remainder of the game.

At half-time, there was a sense of déjà vu from the Wednesday’s win over Gainsborough. From going behind early on to going in to the break 2-1 up. The big positive was we had clearly learned our lesson. When the third goal went in, we went in to a more controlled phase of the game. Leon Scott was brought on to add a bit of extra bite in the middle of the park and our defence settled down to see the game out. As it was, despite being a bit more conservative, we still had more than enough going forward to threaten more goals.

As usual with a Martin Gray side, we have already had six different scorers. There’s no relying on a single player to score the goals when the manager sets his teams up and as such, it appears to be really difficult for opposing teams to judge where the threat is coming from. The obvious option is to try and shackle Mark Beck, but with James Caton, David Ferguson, Josh Gillies and Dave Syers all buzzing around like a bunch of angry hornets, there really isn’t one point of attack that an opposing side can target to quell the goal threat.

Despite winning the first three games, it still feels a little too early to make bold predictions of how our season will pan out. There are enough caveats in each of the first three games to render them irrelevant in pointing towards our final position. The Salford game was an odd one. As well as we played, I think Salford didn’t help their case. Meanwhile, Gainsborough and Alfreton look like they’re going to ship loads of goals and struggle to threaten the top half of the table.

Potentially, Tuesday’s trip to old rivals York City should give us a pretty decent idea of where we stand at this point. They’ll certainly test our defence for the whole game with man-mountain Jon Parkin and the strong and mobile Amari Morgan-Smith. If we switch off at the back, we’ll get punished. However, I fancy we’ll have more than enough going forward to give them a really good game. With the backing of a large following, I can see us going there, getting a goal and holding firm.