PIERCE SWEENEY IS THE CLUB CAPTAIN OF EXETER CITY FC

Unfortunately, print deadlines dictate I’m penning this column ahead of Tuesday night’s game at Reading. I appreciate that from the outside looking in, our trip to La Manga, ahead of last Saturday’s game against Northampton, may have raised a few eyebrows. However, I feel sure we will reap the benefits between now and the end of the season.

Notwithstanding, the facilities were first-class and we enjoyed some really good quality training sessions, it gave the entire squad, especially the new guys, the opportunity to get to know one another that bit better. Certainly, I learnt a great deal about some of my teammates – their backgrounds, the struggles they’ve faced, and their ambitions – that I had no idea of before we went away.

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I dare say a few people will say ‘so what?’ However, believe you me, when your backs are against the wall, as ours have been of late, anything you can do to heighten the sense of camaraderie and having each other’s backs can only help.

As you may recall, Arsenal’s Dennis Bergkamp had an aversion to flying which saw him travel pretty much everywhere by land and sea. Fortunately, we don’t have anyone who’s quite as nervous a flyer as the ex-Gunner, although I understand Reece Cole isn’t overly keen, so was very happy he wasn’t sitting next to me on either flight!

While the trip was anything but a jolly, we did enjoy the occasional bit of down time, including a round of golf on the Monday morning. A team including Reece and Kevin Nicholson emerged on top, although I couldn’t help thinking their victory was a little questionable and wonder if someone might have inspected their scorecards a little more closely!

For sure, a few days in the Spanish sunshine didn’t do me any harm as I stepped up my return from injury and, while I imagine Tuesday’s game at Reading will come a bit too soon for me, I’d like to think I might be involved in some capacity at the weekend. Assuming I come through training okay this week, I’d expect to hear from the manager late on Friday afternoon.

Meanwhile, Jay Bird has gone on loan to Rochdale until the end of the season. Jay’s a big, strong lad, who’s not short of ability, but right now he needs to be playing games, and he should get that opportunity at the National League side.

I understand he went close to opening his account for the Dale on his debut at Tamworth last Tuesday, and he was on the scoresheet as they beat Altrincham 2-0 –in the FA Trophy quarter-final on Saturday.

Hopefully, that will be the first of many and, as was the case when Sonny Cox went on loan to Yeovil last season, he will return to SJP ready to stake a claim for a place in the starting XI.

It goes without saying, we’d have liked to have hit the ground running on our return from Spain and won three- or four-nil at home to Northampton on Saturday. Sadly, it was never likely to be that straight-forward and so it proved.

The visitors took the lead just before half-time and, while they offered little or no threat from thereon in, on a difficult pitch, we struggled to break them down, until Sonny Cox fired us level in the 87th minute. And Sonny might even have won it for us when he broke clear into injury time but, alas, couldn’t quite get his shot away.

Nevertheless, it was a hugely encouraging performance from the 20-year-old academy graduate – who won the sponsor’s man-of-the-match award for his 30-minute cameo – and touch wood we can look forward to more of the same over the next couple of months.

A word too for Ben Purrington, who put in an excellent performance on his return to the side. Not only was Ben extremely solid at the back, he also played a key role in our equaliser – shielding Alex Hartridge’s deft header to allow Sonny to run onto it and fire home.

As Gary [Caldwell] said in his post-match interview, it probably wasn’t a great spectacle for the 6,000-plus fans at SJP. Nevertheless, buoyed by our time at La Manga, we dug deep and drew on a new-found resilience and togetherness to nick a point. Of course, that’s two less than we had been hoping for, but it at least gave us something to build on.

Plainly, that wasn’t the case after our visit to The Valley the previous Saturday when we were on the wrong end of a 3-0 scoreline. For what it’s worth, I thought we did okay – up to a point. The game plan was to drop off a little bit and suck them on to our mid-block and I thought we were doing okay until Ilmari Niskanen was fouled in the build-up to their opening goal midway through the first half.

Irrespective of how we fared at the Madejski Stadium on Tuesday, we must be aiming to get a good haul of points from back-to-back home games against Shrewsbury on Saturday, and Mansfield just over 72 hours later.

As I write, the Shrews are bottom of the table, eight points adrift of safety. However, they’re one of just two teams to have beaten runaway League One leaders Birmingham this season – winning 3-2 at Greenhous Meadow at the end of November – so, plainly, they’re not devoid of ability.

What is more, with Gareth Ainsworth at the helm, we know we’re in for an extremely tough test. I have massive respect for the former Wycombe manager, but he ain’t gonna change his stripes now, so we’re fully expecting Shrewsbury to be horrible to play against and make things very difficult for us.

At the same time, we know that if we execute our game plan, we’re more than capable of bagging a sixth home win of the season and extending the gap between us and the Shropshire side.

For sure, we need to start building a bit of momentum sooner rather than later if we want to pull clear of the bottom four, and a first home win since we beat Bristol Rovers on Boxing Day would set us up nicely for the visit of Mansfield on Tuesday.

Like us, the Stags have struggled over the last six weeks – the point they picked up at Burton at the weekend was just their second in 10 games – and if we can win on Saturday then, with our confidence buoyed, we would be in a much better place ahead of Tuesday night’s vital six-pointer.