Walsall wing-back Richard Taundry spoke to his club's official website ahead of his side's League One game against Carlisle at Brunton Park tomorrow afternoon, Taundry first talking about the Saddlers drawing nine out of their last fourteen games :
“We have had a lot of draws recently but we have all sat down and we know that we have got to turn those draws into wins. I think if we keep going the way we are it is only a matter of time before we actually start getting the wins. At Brentford they threw a bit at us and we threw a bit back at them and we were just unfortunate at the end of the game not to come away with all three points.
“It was a tremendous achievement by Jimmy Walker to break the club appearance record (529 games) at Brentford, we had been speaking about it all week, and it is a massive achievement by anyone at professional level, so we all took our hats off to him and rightly so. He didn’t have a clue that we were doing the 530 t-shirts, it was (Lee) Butler’s idea to go and get the shirts done, so it was a nice way to give him a good celebration.
“We know ourselves that we are difficult to beat but it is not all about being difficult to beat, we need to start picking up more points, so hopefully we will start that on Saturday. We have been happy with our performances, at the start of the season we were having one good half and one bad half but I think we have started to level it out now and started to be more consistent.
“Carlisle are doing OK, but we are not too worried about what they do, it is more about what we do and what we put on the table, so hopefully we will go there and take all three points. We had a good result up there last year so hopefully this year will be the same and we will start kicking on from there. We know we need to get more points and obviously to do that we need to score more goals, so that will be our main aim, and hopefully that will start by repeating last season and picking the three points up up there.
“I have enjoyed playing on the right-hand side to be honest, I thought it was short-term but at the minute it has stuck for a little while so I am happy to be in the team and I am happy to help the lads out how I can. I used to play there anyway so it is not too different to a few years back, but I am just happy to be playing at the moment."
Meanwhile former Carlisle midfielder Kevan Hurst commented to the Express and Star on Walsall's efforts to avoid the relegation trapdoor :
“Everything is in our own hands I feel, you don’t want to rely on people to slip up. It’s not what I want to do and what the other guys want to. That one win will push us on. Look at Hartlepool’s form and where they were at the start of the season. They have come down in the space of ten games so it shows you other teams are catchable. It’s possible to do whatever you want to do. We’ve got to beat the teams around us and get those back to back wins which gives teams confidence. Where you are in the league is where you deserve to be now but I don’t think we’ll be there at the end of the season.”
In team news tomorrow Walsall have a clean bill of health as far as current injuries and suspensions are concerned, but they do have two have players currently lacking full match fitness. The first of those being centre-half Oliver Lancashire who, on coming back from a hamstring injury played the full 90 minutes of a 7-0 reserve team drubbing at Stoke, in which Ben Marshall scored twice and got two assists for the home side. Meanwhile the second is, like Marshall, another former Blues winger in Kevan Hurst, the 26-year old featuring for the opening 70 minutes of that game on his return from a three month lay-off caused due to a broken bone in his heel.
The referee for tomorrow's match is Craig Pawson from Sheffield and he will be assisted down the lines by two Lancastrians in Gary Hilton from Upholland and Michael Salisbury from Penwortham . Meanwhile the fourth official is Martin Coy from Darlington.