St Francis manager Monks stays positive

Monks watched his new team for the first time after missing the first match of his reign due to illness.

It was a much-changed team included four youngsters from the Barnet academy (Brendan Ocran, Theo Alexis, plus strikers George Booker and Louie Leong).

Dartford youth player Edwin Sesay and Frenchman Raphael Tepe from south London also started, alongside five existing players who were already at the club.

Monks said: “There were positives to take from it. Myself and my assistant Paul (Whelan), went to watch Horsham on Tuesday to do our research on them and we set ourselves up to best cope with them and we set-up accordingly.

“We came in at half-time we were losing 1-0. We set ourselves a target of 1-0 at half-time.

“We have been getting battered left, right and centre. There were two penalties and three individual mistakes so if we can cut those out in theory we could have been 0-0.

“Against sides that aren’t quite good as Horsham, they wouldn’t have taken advantage of those individual errors.

“Considering in our last game we were 5-0 down inside 25 minutes, we got the 30th minute before we conceded a goal and almost got the the 60th minute before we conceded another so we have surpassed our first target.

“I set an individual target for each player and they all individually hit their target, so I’m really pleased with them.

“Our aim is on Wednesday to get a point against Eastbourne United because its not nice to have the stigma of being the only team in the league without a point.

“We’ve improved from 9-0 against Eastbourne Town to 5-0 and that’s against a team which is ahead of Eastbourne Town in the league.

“Today we had a mixture of youth players and excellent experienced players and they set the youngsters a good example of how to play.

“I don’t know how you can lose 5-0 and come away being happy with it, but considering where we have come from to where we are now, that’s a step in the right direction.”