Pic: Matt Bristow
ALEX WOODYARD says the Cowley magic is already rubbing off at Lincoln City.
The 23-year-old England C captain followed Danny Cowley – and the boss' brother, assistant manager Nicky – from Braintree Town to Sincil Bank in the summer.
The Cowleys led the part-time Iron to a third-place finish in last season's National League, which led to the Imps offering them their first crack at full-time management.
So far it's going well, with Lincoln sitting third in the table after winning nine of their opening 15 league games.
And Woodyard says having more time to work with their players is paying off for the Cowleys.
“We're not just in for 45 minutes and then all dashing home,” Woodyard said. “We do longer days so we can analyse other teams and do gym sessions.
“Some days we'll have a debrief in the morning and then train in the afternoon. It's good. Everyone has lunch together so we spend a lot of time as a team and that's helped us gel.
“I thought we did a lot at Braintree, but Danny's definitely upped his game now – there are rumours they stay up planning until two in the morning!
“But seriously, before training we'll do injury prevention exercises, fill in data, have urine tests – it's really professional.
“When you're part-time it's a lot harder to work on as much. You've only got four hours a week training, and that's if you aren't playing on a Tuesday night. It's not that you can do more work on opposition teams, it's actually that you can do more on how you're going to play as a team.”
Woodyard, The NLP's Young Player of the Season last year, was the new regime's first signing – and he's enjoying his own step up to full-time.
“I suppose it's a lot better than waking up at 6am and lugging wood about on a building site like I did a bit last year,” Woodyard said.
“I enjoy going into training every day. You feel a lot fitter and sharper and where we're in contact with the ball every day, you feel a lot more comfortable.
“It's still early days, but we've had a good start. We had a bad patch where we didn't win for three games, before we won two in a row.
“It shows that if you put back-to-back wins together in this league it pushes you right up the table.”
