Shaun Derry admitted that he and Assistant Manager Greg Abbott had feared the worst at half time in the 1-0 victory over Colchester United.
A Paddy McCourt header on 68 minutes proved enough to secure all three points for Notts at the Weston Homes Community Stadium, but Derry revealed that he was fearing the worst at half time after his side had dominated proceedings without finding the all-important breakthrough before the interval.
“Me and Greg had a chat at half time, well it wasn’t a chat, it was just a look at each other as if to say, not again, let’s hope it’s not again like on Saturday where we absolutely dominated but just couldn’t get the goal,” the Notts boss explained after the game.
“Thankfully a little bit of magic from the two new lads, obviously we all know Jama, it just takes that one turn of pace, that one cross and Paddy managed to get on the end of it and I’m just relieved to be honest.
“I’m relieved that this horrible run that we’ve been on is over, but I’m not taking anything for granted because we know we’ve got a tough last 13 games coming up,” he added.
“If I’m honest, I think the last four games, tonight aside, I think we deserved to get at least nine points out of the four games, we haven’t got them, sometimes that happens in football, but you have to stay strong and stick to what your beliefs are and we sure done that.
“Tonight, I thought the first 45 was a really good performance, albeit without the goal. The second 45 was a horrible 45 for everyone connected with this game, to watch it, to come this way and see a 45 minutes like that, it wasn’t very good, bar a little bit of magic that got us the goal.
“We asked the boys to do a certain job tonight, put their bodies on the line, because we knew that, at some point, Colchester in the second half would come for us and they started really well in the second half,” he continued.
“We managed to match that in terms of the intensity and the hard running that you need to do, but we couldn’t really play our stuff there because it was a difficult second half for us, but I don’t think we had any luck, I think there was one team tonight who thoroughly deserved to win and that was us.”
Subscribers can watch the full post-match interview with Shaun Derry on Magpie Player.