Holleran's Brakes have some real 'momentum'

Paul Holleran believes his Leamington players have created some “momentum” in the past couple of weeks as they maintained their impressive unbeaten run.

That sequence now stands at seven matches as the Brakes followed up a superb 2-1 home success over York City last weekend with a 1-1 draw against Brackley Town at the Community Stadium on Tuesday night.

A fourth home game in a row arrived on Saturday as last season’s play-off semi-finalists Gateshead make the trip south.

And Holleran, whose team have risen into the top 10 in the Vanarama National League North, believes more points will follow if his players maintain their current levels.

“When you look at AFC Fylde, York and Brackley over the last week or so, they are three teams people will rate very highly in this league and we have gone unbeaten and shown all kinds of tools to get through it,” the Brakes boss said.

“The players were disappointed with only getting a point on Tuesday against Brackley who are one of the established teams in the league and been a bit unlucky to not have got out of it into the league above.

“But that’s how the last few weeks have gone. The momentum has really swung with us. There is a lot of confidence.

“There’s one or two who haven’t played at this level consistently who are getting regular football and they are benefiting from it.

“So I am thinking that I need to really manage these players but, at the moment, they are managing themselves and they just want to keep playing.

“It’s been a great couple of weeks for us and it was another good performance on Tuesday. We just have to keep these levels going and if we do that we will keep picking up points.”

Leamington looked to be on course for another win in midweek when Sam Osborne gave them the lead with a magnificent curling effort for his seventh goal of the campaign.

Brackley were indebted to goalkeeper Danny Lewis for keeping out efforts from Lance Smith and Osborne and the visitors battled back into it to earn a point when Lee Ndlovu struck with just eight minutes remaining.

“There’s never much in these games,” Holleran added.

“The first half was cagey and it was a bit of magic at the end of the half that separated the teams but that spell between 45 and 70 minutes was our’s.

“We really played well and the disappointing thing is that we haven’t got the second and third goal because you know a team like Brackley are going to have a spell with the quality they could bring off the bench.

“And they did, they grew into the half. They came on strong at the end and we had to work hard to protect the point.

“There’s a tinge of disappointment because we had a spell to put the game to bed.

“But it was almost roles reversed from over the years, there’s been times against them where we have hung on and then hit them at the end.”

Leamington had been due to host Darlington next Tuesday evening but that game has now been postponed after a positive Covid-19 test within the Darlington squad.