It never ceases to amaze me the impact a victory can have on a football team.

The Hogges have always been a bubbly bunch but there’s definitely been an added spring in their step since beating New Hampshire Phantoms.

They’ve been reminiscing about certain aspects of Monday’s game in training, while criticising themselves for things they could’ve done better. That’s good for us coaches to see as just because you win doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement.

We always believed in the players and the result increases our confidence in them. Hopefully they’ll start believing in themselves without being over confident or complacent.

But they must realise when we take on Cincinnati City Stars next Friday the hard work must start all over again.

We knew our game against Phantoms was a must win for us and that’s why Kyle (Lightbourne) and myself started the game in attack.

We knew if we could get enough balls into our feet, with our experience, we could create havoc and either score or assist others.

It’s not that we don’t have confidence in our strikers but it’s also a learning process for those on the sidelines to watch how we play.

Hopefully they now know exactly what we want. All the strikers in the squad have ability but sometimes they lack communication and awareness — that’s what we’re trying to get through to them. We didn’t intend to play the entire 90 minutes but felt we had to as the Phantoms were such a physical team and strong from set pieces.

It was such an important game and we thought our aerial ability would be useful from their corners and free kicks. Having played in England we are used to that style of play and that’s why we stayed on longer than we expected to.

To be honest neither Kyle nor myself want to play and would much rather see the players do the job. I don’t think it will be a regular occurrence but we will take each game as it comes.

I have to say I was delighted with our defensive performance and that was one of the bright points of the game for me. We looked a lot tighter and organised and that was excellent to see. I have been critical of our defending this season and too often we have made silly mistakes and been caught by the long-ball.

But it’s great to see us improving in that department and I thought the defensive unit was flawless. We have a bit of a rest before our next game but training in earnest from Monday before we fly out to the States on Thursday. It’s another important game and we must remain focused.

Finally you may have heard one of our players Michael Parsons is currently involved in a court case. Michael asked to take leave a number of weeks ago — which we granted. We have notified our sponsors of the situation and while his case is ongoing we will continue to support him.