Ian Allinson was more than happy with the St Albans City performance in their penultimate friendly against Barnet.

Two goals in the last ten minutes from the talismanic Shaun Jeffers turned the game around and gave Saints a deserved 2-1 win over their National League visitors.

After two 1-0 defeats in the last two games against lower-league opposition, Hendon and Kings Langley, the City boss felt the win was important for the confidence ahead of their season opener against Chelmsford City on Saturday.

He said: "The main thing is that we got a win because it builds that confidence going into Chelmsford, we needed to make sure we got something out of the game.

"When they’ve scored, we could have been 3-0 up. We’ve actually created some really good chances in the first half.

"But again, that’s what we’ve been like all pre-season, we haven’t really taken our chances in games and today we managed to take two in the second half."

The boss knows just how important Jeffers will be to their National League South aspirations and he was pleased to see his star striker find his groove.

He said: "It was pleasing that it was Shaun [who scored] because he needs that for his own confidence.

"He packed up on May 7 and it’s taken seven or eight weeks to get him back training and then back to match fitness.

"He still probably isn’t where he needs to be at this stage but that will come through playing games.

"I’ve got to be careful as we go into a heavy period at the start of the season where we play a lot of games week in, week out, so we’ve got to be careful we share the minutes out and do the work on the training ground."

One aspect of the game that Allinson was not happy with was the way Barnet had taken the lead, Ephron Mason-Clark scoring three minutes from half-time.

He said: "That’s three goals from corners [in the last three games]. It’s something that we’re aware of, it’s something that we’ve spoken about and it’s something that we have to address this week urgently in terms of what we need to do."