“Couldn’t have asked for a better start”

Nathan Waterston says Reds ‘couldn’t have asked for a better start’ to 2019-20, ahead of the upcoming Bank Holiday weekend double-bill.

Waterston, who was Danny Grainger’s first signing this summer, discussed dealing with his pre-season injury, breaking into the starting XI and the team’s so-far perfect Northern Premier League campaign.

I’m still buzzing.

said the forward, almost 48 hours after the late 0-1 victory at Trafford with 10 men on Tuesday.

You could see how much it meant, even with it being early in the season. You would’ve thought we were playing in a cup final.

Especially with 10 men, it was important that we stayed in the game and we kept in at tough times. I always believed that we’d get that chance, and Goose got on the end of it. It’s been a great start for us.

Waterston entered the fray on the hour mark, to make his second appearance of the term and made an impact with his relentless pressing, helping push 10-man Reds up the pitch late on at Shawe View.

Over the summer, the former Barrow man spent a decent amount of time in the treatment room with injury and was ‘disappointed’ not started either game but says ‘the manager knows best.’

I’ve always said that I’m ready to start games and he knows I am but sometimes it’s good just seeing from the sidelines, and seeing the game develop.

I then know where I’m looking to try to exploit the spaces in behind, and which full-back or centre-half I can get at.

I know myself when someones comes on and holds the ball up or just gets at the defence, it can really put a lot of pressure on. In a situation like Tuesday where it was 0-0, it can be a massive relief.

As all forwards do, Waterston is targeting a first goal sooner rather than later and it would be ‘ideal’ if it arrived on Saturday in the FA Cup at Newcastle Benfield.

If it doesn’t, then hopefully, I can keep creating chances. It’s not all about me scoring goals, as long as the team’s winning and I do the best I can on the pitch, like providing assists.

The aforementioned FA Cup match will be followed two days later with the visit of fellow Northern Premier League promotion hopefuls Pontefract Collieries, something the 22-year-old is ‘really looking forward to.’

We were all dying for that first game and dying to get out there and just put on a performance, because we know what we could do. We definitely showed that in the second half on Saturday.

The two games coming up, we’re really looking for forward to it; obviously, the FA Cup is massive for the club, and Monday being another good game with, hopefully, a decent crowd.

To have four games so quick, with the run that we’ve been on – I don’t think we could’ve asked for a better start.

With the games coming thick and fast, we know we have the depth and we’re buzzing to get going.

Reds will travel to Sam Smith’s Park for a 3pm kick-off on Saturday, the same time as Monday’s match at Borough Park on Bank Holiday Monday.