Paul Carden cautious despite Telford's roaring fightback

While the Bucks boss was pleased with some aspects of his team’s performance, he also made clear that the standards set by his team fell well below his expectations.

“The first half was poor, to say the least,” he said. “We were naive, nervous, poor decision-making, control, there was nothing to be positive about, other than it not being more than two goals conceded – but to come back, and to show the spirit that we did in our response was positive.

“There were a lot of things that opened my eyes, because you only see those sorts of things when you’re in games, when it matters. Hopefully I don’t see that too often, but that’s going to be a case of working hard at it.”

The Bucks fell two goals adrift in the first half hour, where their diffidence suggested that far from wanting to impress Carden, they perhaps instead were worrying about making mistakes in front of the new manager, which inevitably led to that very outcome: mistakes.

An enforced lay-off from competitive action had allowed Carden and assistant Carl Baker extra sessions in preparation for the fixture, but Carden admitted that it was only in the heat of competition that he truly learned about the players now under his charge.

“I think we’ve tried to make the most out of not having football for a couple of weeks, but I think that showed,” he said. “Training pitches are never the same as full-sized pitches, and today I felt the distances weren’t right, the spaces in between players. There were too bigger gaps between the units. In the first half we were so far off it, so far away from each other. We tried to address a few things at half-time and thankfully the lads responded and came out fighting.

“I said to the lads that if you get a goal here, you’ll get something out of the game, but you’ve got to believe you’re going to get a goal. Credit to Kettering, in the first half they really put it on us; they smelt a vulnerability about us and they took advantage of it.”

A goal from defender Theo Streete got the Bucks ball rolling after 62 minutes, and with the majority of a much-improved crowd of 1,274 behind them they got their reward when Kai Williams scored with just three minutes of normal time remaining. Williams’ equalising goal was met by huge relief and celebration, but Carden was cautionary in his response.

“We can’t go 2-0 down and then start to have a go,” said the boss. “We’re positive about the point, but we can still be better. I keep saying about the players that we’ve got, but the players that we’ve got have got to really start turning it on and playing to their strengths. I felt at half-time today I could have made half a dozen changes.

“You need to get the fans behind you, not just because we’re reacting to something. Let’s get the fans behind us because we go a goal up. Let’s get the place loud, let’s get them cheering rather than jeering at half-time like they were, because to be honest, I was joining them, because it just wasn’t good enough.”