Notts County manager Neal Ardley hopes this evening’s victory at Harrogate can be the springboard for the Magpies’ season.
Goals from Kristian Dennis and Enzio Boldewijn were enough to consign the ten-man hosts to a 2-0 defeat.
And, while he admits it was far from the perfect display, Ardley saw plenty of promising signs.
“I would have snapped anyone’s hand off to win away from home against a team who made the play-offs last season on a plastic pitch that they should be better than us on, while also keeping a clean sheet,” said Ardley after full-time.
“We made it difficult for ourselves in the second half but we were excellent before the break. We could have been two or three-up before they got their penalty, which would have been a real kick in the teeth had they scored.
“I’ve told the boys that, given all the conditions of today, that’s a fantastic win. We want to learn and get better, so we’ll do some video analysis this week and look at what caused us some problems and what we need to do better on Sunday.
“But we’ve kept a clean sheet, defended for our lives and seen the game out. It’s something to move on with.”
Ardley was pleased with the debut display of new signing Regan Booty, while fellow recent arrival Ben Turner also caught the manager’s eye with his performance at centre-half.
“Ben’s walking like Robocop at the moment,” laughed Ardley. “He won’t thank me for throwing him into 90 minutes today – the physios are going to have to do some work on him this week!
“He’s a big lad and we didn’t know how he’d handle the surface but we wanted to play him because we knew Mark Beck would cause us a problem and Ben’s size and experience would have helped us with that.”
Notts’ next match is a home clash with Wrexham on Sunday. Click here to get your ticket.