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Ian Dawes spoke to the press to preview Tranmere’s Good Friday’s visit to Carlisle.
Rovers sit at 14th place in the league and realistically have only pride to play for, whereas Carlisle are engrossed in an enthralling promotion battle.
Dawes praised his players for their recent character and emphasised the strong group they had.
“We’re lucky here that we’ve got a good group of players who want to learn and that’s not just the younger players but also the senior players.
“They’ve got an appetite to learn and their application towards doing that has been great. It’s a new system and it might take a bit of time to perfect it but over time I’ve seen the improvement.
“The mentality of the group has pleased me the most and wanting to get on the ball and play because that’s half of the battle. Even when we do lose the ball, you need the right reaction to go and get it back.
“You can see with the data that we have and even just with your eyes, the lads are giving it everything they’ve got. We’ve just got to keep going and keep pushing it and you can tell the players want to keep improving. We want to get closer to putting in performances closer to a full 90 minute performance.”
Carlisle has proved to be a tough task at the best of times for teams, but Dawes sees this game as just another hurdle to climb.
“I don’t see Friday as a daunting task, I see it as an exciting challenge.
“It’s one of those games which will test your values and your beliefs as a team and how you want to play because if you can go and do it against them then you can do it against everyone.”
Image: TRFC
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