Endurance reigime paying off for Boro

GRAHAM WESTLEY believes it is no coincidence his team has finished the last three seasons strongly.

The Boro squad is renowned for the hard work it puts in on the training ground and that has come to fruition in the latter stages of recent seasons as they have pushed for success leaving the Boro boss in no doubt that the hard work is paying off.

“It’s an old adage that it’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon and our training is all about endurance - speed endurance and strength endurance,” Westley told The Comet.

“It’s a long old season and the attributes that we build into the players don’t necessarily come through in the early weeks of the season when it is all about being bright and buzzy and pitches are nice. As the season gets longer, harder and tougher and as you say it’s a trait, it’s happened every year and it can’t be a coincidence that our focus is on the long game not the short game.

“We cope with a little bit of indifference in the early parts of the season, we’d love for those early parts of the season to be better times for us and we’ll think about that going forward but at the same time the strong finish is customary, we hope our best is yet to come and I’m sure there will be a lot of people forecasting that is the case.”

It is hoped influential winger Lawrie Wilson will be back in contention for Boro for Sunday’s play-off clash with Accrington having missed the exciting 3-3 draw with Bury last week while Joe Welch is expected to return to the bench.

Westley hasn’t ruled out veteran first team coach Dino Maamria retaining his place amongst the replacements.

“Will Dino still be on the bench? I suspect he might,” Westley revealed.

“There’s always one or two that drop out and there’s always one or two that come back fit.

“It’s been another intense week on the training ground, there’s been one or two bangs gone on out there, that’s the way we are.

“There will be 11 fit’uns…..that are itching and prepared and ready to go.”