Bromley manager, Andy Woodman believes that their League One trip to Mansfield is a “big” test.
Woodman’s Ravens crashed out of the Jersey Mike’s Trophy last night (6 October) after a 4-0 defeat at Crawley in their second group match, as Stephen Duke-McKenna scored twice for the Red Devils amidst own goals from Nathan Patten and Rex Porter.
Woodman however felt in his post-match interview to BFC TV that giving players match fitness was his immediate priority over a cup run, having spent two weeks focused on fitness building after their 1-0 loss to Brentford B in the competition amidst postponement of two league matches.
The 55-year-old gaffer also has his eyes firmly fixed on Bromley’s trip to Mansfield on Saturday 10 October (3pm BST) with both teams flirting with the relegation zone, hence his decision to field a starting 11 of players who hadn’t played regularly and a bench of mainly young players.
“I’m not discrediting the competition, but it’s very difficult to, you know, when you’ve got a big game on Saturday to play players that, you know, you might want to risk and get injured for Saturday.
“And where we are at the moment, we’ve got to make sure we keep everybody available and fit for the league campaign.”
Woodman also iterated that he made his selections in the best interest of the team beyond that match and again clarified that he wasn’t discrediting the competition with his actions due to the club’s current injury crisis with Shamal George and Richard Taylor amongst those sidelined.
“Ok and I don’t want to discredit the competition but we have to kind of do what we have to do for, you know, to get everyone fit. We’ve worked hard these last two weeks to make sure players are right, you know, as close as they can be to fitness.
“And, you know, playing tonight and playing Saturday is then a risk that’s going to put us right back to where we were and I’m not going to do that.”
Jodi Jones meanwhile made just his second appearance since his deadline-day move from Notts County in September but was substituted at half time, despite Woodman describing his performance as “sharp” but he clarified that Jones’ substitution was planned.
“We’ve worked really hard to make sure that we get Jodi Jones up the fitness. You know, Mickel Miller up to fitness. You know, Mendy up to fitness as best we can in that time. And then what we don’t want to do is fresh them out here tonight and then they’re, you know, they’re a struggle for Saturday.
“We want to make sure that we’ve got as many players to choose from for Saturday. So yea, it was all planned and we stuck to the script. Regardless of the goals and the result, that was how we were going to do it. And you know, that’d be on me for sure.”
Young players like Rex Porter, Jonathan Haftom and Freddie Cowin featured throughout the game with Woodman left confident that they will learn from the manner of the defeat, albeit with support from himself and the club in their character building development.
“Yeah, definitely a bit of character building. They can reflect on the game and have a look at how they performed. We’ll go through bits of trying to help them and educate them and get that wiseness into them, which they’re not going to have at that age.
“But I certainly don’t think they should feel that they’ve, you know, been humiliated in that respect, you know, they put some good performances in.”
With Bromley’s trip to Mansfield now the main priority, Woodman iterated to supporters that securing League One survival is his main priority this season, although there is still the potential for a FA Cup run depending on how the draws play out.
“Yeah, absolutely. And I think, look, I could stand here and say so much stuff. But I think we’ve got to realise that the league campaign is our most important competition that we’re in this year. And I’m not going to go away from that.
“I’m not going to stand here and say anything other than that’s our focus. The league campaign’s our focus, making sure that I’ve got as many players to pick from to get the best results on a Saturday and a Tuesday in the league. And that’s, I’ll be maintaining it.”
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