Walsall blog: Play off form

If you reach the middle of February and you’re in the play-off zone then sometimes results have to take precedent over performances, writes Walsall blogger Mark Jones.

Saturday’s win for the Mighty Saddlers certainly fell into the roll your sleeves up and grind out a win category.

In all honesty what struck me most was the fact that we were better than Yeovil.

Without the departed Dann and Dan, with the whereabouts of Michael Ricketts still unknown, with Mark Bradley resting an injury, with Michael Dobson seemingly out of favour, we were better than Yeovil.

With Wracky going off early in the second half, with Clayton and Paul Boertien playing below their best, with Kevin Betsy still looking to get match fit, with Deeney, Nicholls and Taundry still inexperienced and developing players and with Tommy having one of those days where nothing he tried seemed to come off, we were still better than Yeovil.

Forget the talk of their outfield midget going in goal, it made little difference to either of our goals and therefore played no part in the result.

You have to remember it was only a month ago that our win away in wettest Zomerset put us clear of Yeovil in the table, they are a side still clinging on to hopes of the play-offs themselves.

Last season they went all the way to Wembley, their defeat denying us our traditional Blackpool weekender.

If this demonstrates anything at all, it’s that the League table doesn’t lie and isn’t lying, Walsall are fast becoming the real deal.

Slowly but surely what was a far-fetched fantasy in September, a dream in November, a hope at the turn of the year is turning into reality.

With 15 games to go we can start looking at our remaining fixtures and picking out potential victories, looking at other team’s fixtures and then checking the league tables for slightly longer than is absolutely necessary for a grown adult who should have better things to do (but hasn’t).

To me Tuesday’s trip to Swansea is a free go, one of those games where you don’t necessarily budget for any points so a draw becomes a bonus and a win would be extremely satisfying.

We haven’t had a lot of change out of the Swans in the last few years.

At our place we’ve had a couple of thumpings and a penalty shoot out defeat; and our visits to the Liberty Rugby Ground have resulted in a penalty shoot out defeat after a brave show by an extremely young side, a late deflected equaliser robbing Kev Broadhurst’s team (remember?) of a rare win and the first public appearance of the dreaded yellow shorts.

So I think it’s fair to say the prospect of walking amongst our Welsh cousins (and I’ve actually got some Welsh cousins – distant ones mind) after the game with a smug grin and three points is an appealing one.

I reckon we can give it a good go but of course our season may now be affected by events in darkest Warwickshire.

The now managerless Cov City may want to further disrupt things by pilfering our promising young boss.

Dicky, kindly tell them to go and get lost … please.

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