Walsall Head Coach Mat Sadler praised the tireless work of his players after Saturday’s 4-1 victory over Gillingham.
Isaac Hutchinson scored a superb hat-trick and also set up Freddie Draper’s goal on a fantastic afternoon for the Saddlers at the Poundland Bescot Stadium.
Sadler felt his team deserved the victory and was pleased to see the team respond with a complete performance.
“We’ve got a group of people, a group of men, a group of coaching staff that are always desperate to improve and always desperate to get better,” Sadler said.
“We understood on the back of Sutton that we didn’t perform well enough on the day. The group that we’ve got will say ‘okay, we’ll roll our sleeves up and we’ll roll them a bit higher and we’ll give everything we can to put that right.’
“It was all born out of hard work. I thought the group were relentless in the way that they played, relentless in their press, relentless in their counter press, relentless in their defending and their willingness to throw themselves on the line was top drawer and we thoroughly deserved the win and I’m extremely pleased for everybody connected with us.”
Hutchinson took his tally for the season to six in all competitions with his first professional hat-trick.
Sadler was keen to highlight the entire squad’s efforts and contributions to the victory but he praised the quality of the 23-year-old’s goals and his contributions throughout the campaign.
“Even when Isaac isn’t on top of his game Isaac is a goal threat,” Sadler commented.
“He’s still a real creator for us and Saturday tipped off how he has been like that throughout the whole season so far. What Isaac is fully aware of is the group put a hell of a lot of work in to present some of those opportunities to him.
“Everybody contributed hugely, Isacc brilliant – his first goal was top drawer, he’s got that and his third goal was a fantastic team goal with the way that we worked it, I thought it was a fantastic ball from Ross (Tierney) to set him up as well so there were terrific performances all round.
“Donervon (Daniels) and Harry (Williams) were brilliant, you’re never going to get the whole game your way so when we did concede and had that little bit of a spell, I thought they grafted into it, rolled their sleeves up and they weren’t to be denied.
“Every single one of them was superb and the ones who came on, exactly the same and the ones who didn’t come on, we were extremely together as a group. I must be pleased with that as a coach because we were disappointed the week previously but the group are consistent in their behaviours about how we work at things and Saturday was all about hard work.”
As well as the expected absentees, the Saddlers were without Aramide Oteh at the weekend and Sadler explained the reason behind his absence.
“Rem has a hamstring injury,” he confirmed.
“We’re not 100 per cent sure how bad it is yet so we’re going to have to see on that one. It’s one to watch over the coming days so I’m sure we’ll have more answer next time we speak as to what that looks like.
“We’re still missing a couple. Priestley (Farquharson) is not far so there are still more bodies to come into the group. It’s great to have Coms back but we keep moving forward.”
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