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Lordswood’s new management wanted to see where the team’s mentality was at and last Saturday’s display proved it was in a good place.
Joint-managers Ross Wiles and Lee Garlinge have liked a lot of what they’ve seen in the squad and are making adjustments along the way.
New signing Matty Holness was man-of-the-match in last weekend’s thrilling finish at Lydd and another full-back, George Sheminant, has now joined from Hollands & Blair.
Lords beat the Lydders 2-1 with a stoppage-time winner from Alex Mulrooney-Skinner moments after the home side cancelled out Elliott Duncan’s first-half effort.
It was a testing period that the team came through and Garlinge said: “The boys have obviously lost a few games so it was kind of, ‘where’s their mentality at?’.
“As soon as the Lydd goal went in, the boys regrouped and they went again. They really dug deep and to be honest we probably looked like scoring two or three straight after they scored. They 100% answered the question.
“We have inherited a really good group. When you go on some losing runs, it's hard to get out of it and hopefully one win can turn it around.
“The only way is up for us and it’s nice to get the three points. We've got a few games in hand, but obviously, points on the board are nice.
“We've inherited a really good core of the group. Me and Ross just believe that there's only two or three we need to get in through the door. We’ve got a couple in this week with Sheminant and Holness.
“We're probably looking for one or two more but we're really happy with what we've got there.”
Holness played the full match against Lydd after joining on loan from Dover Athletic ahead of the weekend.
“We might have unearthed a little gem there,” said the joint boss.
“He's right-hand side and still in the 90th minute he was breaking away.
“George hasn't played for us yet but he's just come back from an injury and was playing for Hollands & Blair. We're going to ease him in nice and slowly.”
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Influential player Callum Peck will be a miss three games following his weekend sending off for a bad challenge. He was set to be unavailable this Saturday anyway.
Garlinge said: “We’ll be trying to plug a gap now until he gets back but we're trying to build a deep squad so someone could just slot in straight away, and it would be fairly seamless.”
Looking back at the game, Lordswood went ahead on 26 minutes after Duncan found the bottom corner from the edge of the box but he missed a chance to double the lead from the penalty spot.
Lordswood had already seen a goal ruled out for offside shortly after the turnaround and Lydd’s James Rogers was sent off for a second bookable offence, penalised for handball which led to the 55th minute penalty, which was saved.
Lydd levelled it up two minutes from the end but Lordswood didn’t give it up and substitute Alex Mulrooney-Skinner popped up with the winner in the 92nd minute.
Garlinge said: “The game could have been buried with the penalty and their sending off but I think they just like making the game tough. I think me and Ross might be turning grey quite quickly in this job!
“When they equalise late on, you think the worst, but it was absolutely fantastic for the boys to come back from that and we could have probably scored a couple more.”
Garlinge is enjoying the joint manager role alongside Ross Wiles - the pair taking over from Nicky Southall, who was in charge of Lydd Town at the weekend after quickly finding a new position.
Garlinge has played locally for many years and had most recently been under-23 boss at Chatham Town.
“It was very difficult to leave there,” he said.
“Obviously, Chatham are flying and the 23s are flying as well, top of the league, but it was just an opportunity that Ross and the Lordswood chairman presented to me and I couldn't turn down.
“Myself and Ross are going to work closely with the 23s here and try and strengthen that. We've already sent a couple of first-team boys down to get some minutes, just to try and make a bigger connect with it all. so we're all singing off the same page. We’ll keep turning up to their games and trying to find boys that can jump into the first team.
“Trying to tap into the young talent in the local area is something we'll definitely be doing.”
