Gavin Cowan hails his ‘awesome’ AFC Telford players

The Bucks took an early lead through Aaron Williams and then showed commendable discipline and work-rate to maintain their advantage as the visitors dominated possession but left with little to show for it.

Cowan said after the game that the way the game had gone hadn’t surprised him, with the Bucks’ homework, allied to the players’ execution of the plan, paying off.

“It was a very different challenge to what we’ve had previously,” he said.

“We knew they’d have a lot of the ball, but credit to my players; I thought that they were so disciplined out of possession, and that everything that we thought that they’d throw at us, they did.

“As a staff, all that we can do is give them all of that detail and all of that information, but once they step out over that white line there’s not a lot that we can do.

“I thought they were awesome; sometimes it’s not all about possession, I even thought we had the better chances, so yes, I’m very happy.”

The Bucks sit second in the league table with seven points from an available nine, although Cowan often claims that he doesn’t look at the positions until well after Christmas. The manager praised the group rather than individuals, stressing that the impact of new arrivals has galvanised his team as a unit.

“It’s about characters. With these players there was a lot of belief; they’re a great group and we feel like we’ve added players with that bit of football intelligence who know how to manage games,” he added.

One cloud on the Bucks’ horizon was an injury to Courtney Meppen-Walters, which forced the left-sided defender to leave the game just before the half-time interval.

The Bucks will assess the injury this week, although a damaged hamstring appeared to be what had the defender limping as he left the ground on Saturday.