FOUR games into the season and we've already survived Tiverton, in-form Newport County and a coach fire on the M25.

It's only the start of a long, hard campaign but at the beginning of the season I must admit I would have been fairly happy with the two wins at home and the draws on the road that we have achieved so far.

Having said that had we had the range of striking options available then we could have been looking at maximum points.

If there was one slight criticism of the team so far it is that we have failed to convert our chances. Against Tiverton we had a good hour of the game and at Chelmsford though we came away with a point, on reflection there is no doubt it should have been three.

What has been satisfying is the football we have played. There have been chunks of decent play that has been a big improvement on last year.

The new signings, David Foy, Pat Lyons and John Snape have certainly been influential in bringing that change around. They are all comfortable on the ball and with their ability on the ball our football has improved as a result.

Mind you it took us a while to get a grip against a rampant Newport on Monday and I must admit I wouldn't have been too disheartened with 1-0 at half-time.

On the balance of play they deserved to go in one-up. Looking back I think I can be critical of the boys for the first-half because we didn't play football.

Newport deserve a tremendous amount of credit for the way they played, but equally so do we for our second-half display.

The platform for that was laid by Carl Heeley's goal just before the break. Carl has pitched in with one or two crucial goals in his time and that was critical and also changed the tone of the half-time team-talk.

What was encouraging even before Carl's goal though, was the fact that we didn't panic and then when we equalised we had the platform to work on.

I didn't know whether Newport could carry on in the second-half the way they had but I certainly knew there was more to come from us and we had a lot to prove.

Fortunately we did and Jon Holloway again made a vital contribution. He won the penalty on Saturday, and on Monday and then scored the winner.