Striker Danny Rose has attributed a ‘good pre-season’ and ‘adapting well’ to manager John Dempster’s style of play as the reasons for his strong start to the campaign.
The former Bury striker has scored in both Sky Bet League Two fixtures thus far and confidently tucked away his spot kick in Tuesday night’s Carabao Cup penalty shootout defeat to Morecambe.
The 25-year-old added that the summer arrivals of ‘very good strikers’ Nicky Maynard and Andy Cook makes for healthy competition, which he says ‘spurs’ him on.
“I didn’t really have much of a pre-season last year because of injuries,” the striker began. “I think the pre-season has been key this season, because I’ve had a good one with the new gaffer [John Dempster].
“I’m just wanting to kick on now. I’ve had a good start but I want to keep that up throughout the season.
“There has been a change in style this season and that takes time to gel when a new gaffer comes in. I’m sure that when we adapt to things, we’ll be fine.
“I think Nicky [Maynard] works well off me when I’m winning flick-ons and he’s gambling on getting in behind. Cooky [Andy Cook] is also good at that – he had a very good game [on Tuesday] before he picked up a little niggle.
“I think we [strikers] complement each other very well. The gaffer has fetched in those two very good strikers who are proven at this level.
“It brings healthy competition and spurs you on. I just need to work hard every day and hope I get in the team.
“Under the new gaffer I’m adapting really well to his system. I’m hoping that continues throughout the season – I don’t want it to be a good start that veers off.”
Rose also looked forward to this weekend’s game against Carlisle United, a match he says the Stags will have to ‘start well,’ but will enter ‘full of confidence.’
“It’s a good start for me personally, to get the two goals is nice. But the bigger picture is that the lads are a bit disappointed that we’ve not picked up a victory out of the two league games.
“It’s been pretty similar how the games have gone. The starts have not been ideal because we give ourselves a mountain to climb, but we’ve done well to pull it back to 2-2.
“We’ll look forward to Carlisle now - I’ve played there quite a few times. We’ll go there full of confidence, we’re unbeaten in the league so you have to take the positives.
“We just need to get that first league win and I think we’ll be fine after that.
“They [Carlisle] are a good side and had a good midweek win against Barnsley in the cup, so they’ll be full of confidence going into Saturday’s game.
“If we turn up, we know we can beat anybody on our day, so I think we’ll be fine.
“It’s obvious that we need to start games better than we have been doing. Going 2-0 down isn’t ideal, so if we start well and stay in the game then we’ll be a force to be reckoned with this season.”
iFollow Stags subscribers can watch the forward’s interview in full by logging into mansfieldtown.net/ifollow later today.
