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Moments of disappointment have been rare during 2023 for Wanderers and, crucially, those fleeting failures have not been allowed to fester.
Ian Evatt’s side has not lost successive league games since October last year and Gethin Jones believes their ability to ‘reset’ has been one of the biggest improvements he has seen in the three-and-half years he has been with the club.
Jones can remember a time when boom and bust was the norm. Four straight league losses and a Papa Johns Trophy exit at Hartlepool over the festive period in 2021/22, or even that record-setting winless start in 2020 that still sticks in the manager’s craw to this day.
The vice-captain feels, however, that minor inconveniences such as Monday night’s defeat at Portsmouth will no longer snowball into a full-scale drama.
“The mentality in this squad is strong, we all want to win,” he told The Bolton News. “We know you can’t win every game – nobody does but we push ourselves hard to win as many as we can.
“From the start of the season we talked about staying level, you don’t get too high with the highs or too low with the lows. If you get a bad performance or a bad result you reset and start again.
“Every single day in training we have small-sided games or three-team games and every one of them is competitive, we want to win every second. The manager is driven, we want to be winners in everything we do whether that’s the Bristol Street Motors Trophy, the FA Cup, the league, even if it’s a passing drill on the training ground, we don’t allow an off day.
“A few of the lads have said in interviews that if things aren’t right in training the manager has us doing press-ups and stuff like that. It is driving us on standards.
“When you have disappointment, you can see how far the team has come because there is a drive there to win the next one.”
The last time Wanderers lost successive league games was at Cheltenham and Forest Green – two Gloucestershire games within four days of each other. This season, Evatt’s side have drawn two and won once immediately after suffering a defeat.
It remains to be seen whether Evatt will look to freshen up his starting line-up against Bristol Rovers on Saturday to try and ensure any lingering disappointment is eliminated.
In that sense, he has options, with the likes of Kyle Dempsey, Aaron Morley, Victor Adeboyejo and Jack Iredale all ready to hit the ground running.
In midweek, West Brom loanee Zac Ashworth travelled with the team but did not make the bench, going through a warm-up and warm-down with the fitness staff before the game. Luke Matheson was another player who stayed behind to play for the B Team in their game against Salford City.
Jones has experienced leaner times, where injuries and illnesses have bitten hard into the squad at this time of year, and that is why he has faith that Wanderers can fulfil their target of a top two spot this season.
“Every six months in the three-and-a-half years I have been here now we have progressed,” he said. “The whole aim has been to get into the top two of League One, so the aim now is to stick with it and stay up there.
“It has been an eventful journey, really enjoyable. The first few months wasn’t so great but we stuck to what we believed in, the Gaffer was on us every single day telling us to keep believing ourselves. We work hard every day to get results and we’re getting there now.
“This is the strongest squad I have been involved in. You look at whoever the starting team is and then the lads on the bench. We have got a strong 22-23, so you have lads who are not even on the bench who are good players.
“It is the way the game is going you can’t afford to let up in training. It could be one bit of bad luck, an injury, and then all of a sudden you have got a chance in the team and you have to be ready, especially if you are trying to compete in every competition like we are this year. The number of games mean you need everyone sharp and ready to take a chance.
“It is a strong, tight group as well. If I don’t play, whoever is in my position I’ll be supporting. As a team, we all want promotion.”
Jones’s career has progressed at a similar rate of knots to the club, having signed as a League Two regular at Carlisle United he has now got an outside shot of becoming a fully-fledged Australia international in the New Year.
Scouts have been watching him and Jack Iredale with the possibility of calling them into the Asian Cup squad in January – news of which led to some puzzled looks in the Bolton dressing room.
For Iredale the link seemed straightforward, but for the Welsh-speaking former Evertonian some explanation of his backstory was necessary.
“My parents went out to Perth to live for a good few years. Me and my brother were born there,” Jones said.
“I came back when I was three or four, back to Wales, and it is a strange one because even some of the lads who heard the news that they had been looking at me, they were like: ‘I thought you were Welsh?’ But I was born there, so we will see what happens.
“My family loved living in Australia and the only reason they came back was that my dad took on the family business, my grandad was a builder, and I don’t think my mum really wanted to come back – the lifestyle over there is very different.
“But that’s the reason I qualify. We get told after games who has maybe been watching – and I guess it is the same for Eoin Toal or for Dion Charles if someone from Northern Ireland has been watching them.
“I don’t think you can concentrate on it too much or look into it. Things change quickly in football, they move on, and the only thing you can affect is how you train every day and how you play out on the pitch. If that is positive then you are doing something right.”
Australia face India, Syria and Uzbekistan in the Asian Cup, to be hosted by Qatar, and pick up their World Cup qualifiers with a double header against Lebanon in March.
Kusini Yengi, the striker who scored the second goal against Wanderers at Fratton Park on Monday night, has recently been called up to the Socceroos squad and looks likely to miss games for Portsmouth in the New Year.
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