Notts County Manager spoke to the media on Monday ahead of Tuesday night’s trip to Doncaster Rovers in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy Northern Area Quarter-final.
Having not had a game since the 1-1 draw away to Sheffield United in Sky Bet League 1 at the end of November, Derry admitted that it has been a strange couple of weeks, with even preparations for that game having to be amended, but he is happy with how his players have reacted.
He told the assembled journalists: “It’s been a strange couple of weeks actually, obviously leading into the Friday night game as well, you have a certain regime that you tend to follow and you have to mix and match that for a Friday night game and then obviously by being out of the cup it’s given us time to spend quite a lot of sessions on the training field.
“When you see the surroundings, what it is at the minute, it’s absolutely Baltic up here and you don’t want to be out on the training field for too long, so the intensity has been there for the best part of an hour and a half and that’s us done, get away and try and look forward to what’s going to be a very busy period of football coming up.”
Looking specifically at the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy, the Notts boss was full of praise for the competition and the opportunities that it presents to teams from Leagues 1 and 2.
“It’s been a great competition since it started and it’s just getting bigger and bigger,” he added. “I think the lads who play in the JPT are starting to realise just what a good cup competition it is because the likelihood is that if you’re a League One or League Two player you’re gonna be perhaps missing out on FA Cup football in round two and round three anyway, so to be in with a chance of reaching Wembley is a fantastic opportunity.”
Subscribers can see the full interview with Shaun Derry on Magpie Player.