Rob Edwards: AFC Telford need to start believing in themselves

Edwards saw a great improvement in his side from their defeat at Curzon Ashton last Monday, and he clearly has enough faith in his players after this display to expect them to climb further up the table as the season progresses.

“I was pleased with the reaction of the players to Monday’s defeat,” he said. “Over the last three games, apart from a 25-minute spell against Brackley when we let ourselves down, the lads have been really good.

“We know that we need to get more in the final third, but we’re working on it. They’ve got to start believing in themselves more.”

Marcus Dinanga, signed on loan from Burton just before the Curzon Ashton game, crowned a hard-working performance with the 46th-minute winner, and Edwards said: “Marcus has been excellent in the two games so far.

“He was unlucky not to get on the scoresheet on Monday night, he had a lot of shots at Curzon.

“It’s great to get a striker in among the goals so early in his playing career for us.

“He was full of running and fully deserved his goal. I thought he was outstanding in the second half.

“I thought we could have had a penalty near the end when Marcus was brought down inside their area. I’ll have to look back at the video but sometimes you don’t get them.”

Edwards admitted that he was frustrated at half-time, after a first half in which his side missed two good chances.

“I had a go at the players because I thought they were better than they showed,” he said. “I thought we were the better team, and we could have been even better. We were just a little bit sloppy at times in possession, and we could have dominated more than we actually did.

“All of the players were excellent,and the back three were outstanding against a really strong player (Mark Beck) at this level who causes a lot of problems. We were well aware of him, and we made sure we were tight to any wide players.

“Shane Sutton was outstanding in the heart of our defence. Anything that came into our box was headed away and cleared.

"The main threat in the second half was from set-pieces, but Jasbir didn’t have any saves to make because the lads were clearing everything in front of him. If anyone was going to score, I thought it would be us for a second. I was a little bit disappointed because I thought we deserved to.”