Brennan: ‘Our work-rate and desire to defend from the front were key to victory’

Hemel fought back from a goal behind to win the game with two goals from captain Jordan Parkes – maintaining their impressive recent run of form.

“Our work-rate and our desire to defend from the front were key to our victory at Sutton,” said Brennan.

“Sutton asked a lot of questions of us defensively and I felt we came up with answers on the day.

“Sutton are for me one of the best attacking teams in our league; they have lots of quality in attacking areas and they also have plenty of speed throughout their team.

“We got off to a sluggish start to the game, but after we went 1-0 down it seemed to wake us up and we started to control the game and created plenty of clear goal-scoring opportunities.

“I felt we created the better of the chances on the day and we stuck together and dug deep to come away with the three points.”

Brennan was full of praise for Parkes, and admired the mental strength of his captain as he kept his cool to score the last minute winner from the penalty spot.

“Parksey is a top player for us and, being a local Hemel lad, I know it means a lot to him to be our captain,” said the Tudors boss.

“For me it was no surprise to see him walk up and put that free-kick in the top corner.

“He is always practicing and working on his game; we have to pull him off the training pitch when it comes to taking free-kicks.

“It took some serious nerve to step up and slot the penalty away to win us the game in the 94th minute. To be fair to Parksey he is right on top of his game at this moment in time.”

Brennan is now urging his side to build on Saturday’s win and continue their impressive run of form.

“We know have good strength and depth in our squad, and we have been more consistent in selecting our team,” he said.

“We also have more belief around the camp and our younger players are starting to believe in their own ability.

“We have to keep our feet on the floor and make sure we keep to the standard of work ethic we have set ourselves as a team.

“We will continue to take it one game a time and coming up next for us we have Basingstoke at home this Saturday.

“It’s another game we are really looking forward to; It’s another test tactically as Basingstoke play a counter-attacking style of football rather than our last three games where we played attack-minded teams.”