A buoyant Carl Abbott said praised the way his Hinckley AFC side performed in their 1-1 draw with Bedworth United on Saturday.
James Williams’ second half goal earned Hinckley a draw and Abbott said he was delighted with the way his side asserted themselves on the game.
He said: “We came to a side from two leagues higher, who are well run by Stuart Storer with some very good players. They had a good quality of possession but I thought we defended really well.
“But I thought we grew into it and had some good possession ourselves. We kept the ball well, created some good opportunities and I was really pleased with the first half.
“Then we asserted ourselves more in the second half. We tried to take advantage of their back three and see if we could tactically take advantage of that. For large parts of the second half we penned them in and it worked really well.
“I’m grateful to Bedworth for giving us a great workout on a great surface. It’s given us a really good test run for out first league game at Stafford on another 3G.”
While some teams prefer to play lower level opposition to record big victories in pre-season, Abbott prefers to test his side against sides from leagues higher up.
He said he feels his side can cope against such sides, and says the testing nature of the pre-season campaign will benefit AFC once the competitive action starts.
“We’re operating at a level I think we can cope at. I don’t really take a great deal out of battering teams. Some people like that in pre-season which is fair enough, you can score goals and take confidence.
“But I’d rather be tested and worked. Results are secondary. For us this is a confidence builder, as was Nuneaton. We may have lost that but in a sink or swim situation, we swim every time.
“We’re ready for the start of the season now. We’re peaking really nicely and we’re ready to go now.”
To see the full video interview with Abbo, visit our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/C0iUk-lSmao
