REACTION: "Winning Mentality" - Woodman On Woking Winner & Wednesday

TOWERING defender Deon Woodman towered over Woking's rear-guard on Saturday to score a 66th-minute header in front of the Wealdstone faithful, handing his team a crucial three Enterprise National League points.

It was a first league win since October 8 for Sam Cox's side. And, despite some cup successes in between, the gap wasn't lost on the centre-half.

"We knew we'd had a bit of drought in the league, so that's why last week was important - about breeding that winning mentality again," said Woodman, referring to the first of two consecutive 1-0 wins for the Stones - last weekend's coming in the Isuzu FA Trophy Fourth Round versus Dagenham & Redbridge.

"The goals we've conceded of late - four against Boreham Wood then four against Aldershot - meant we needed to get back to basics and we did that last week. And I thought we carried it on really well against Woking today."

So much so, argued the 23-year-old, that it felt "quite comfortable" during a narrow victory which sees Stones join both Woking and Wednesday's visitors Tamworth in mid-table on 35 points each.

"A clean sheet and a win is just about the best kind of result you can get when you've been struggling for consistent form as a team," he explained.

"At half-time today, we spoke about having had a lot of pressure and control without creating too many chances. 

"I thought we really stepped on a few yards in the second half and created more danger. That came from a better understanding right from the back to the front - and I thought the forward players worked amazingly hard to keep the ball once we went ahead.

"And of course coming down the slope towards our own fans always helps!"

It was at the Anthony Georgiou's perfectly-flighted corner kick which arced up into the Ruislip air and fell invitingly just outside the six-yard box for Woodman to rise highest and power home his match-winning header.

Smiled Woodman: "Do you know what, you don't necessarily think 'Yes, this is coming my way' because often - due to the number of bodies - you can't get near it!

"Today it landed perfectly for me and it was a great delivery from Ant."

So two clean sheets and two back-to-back victories; that's obviously a massive boost. How does it set up Wednesday night here at The Vale, in Deon's opinion?

"More than anything, getting that winning feeling back in the league means everyone's going to have that spring in their step in training and on Wednesday night," said Saturday's Man-of-the-Match, an award he received from Match Sponsor Steve Grimwood.

"It's going to be tough on Wednesday. We've found Tamworth tough to beat, like a lot of teams in this division have, and we're level on points with them right now so there's plenty of incentive to build more of a run of good results."

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