Ian Allinson is pleased to have given St Albans City a relative rest ahead of the final run-in to the Vanarama National South season.

Tough away trips to Hungerford Town, Concord Rangers and Weston-super-Mare were followed by Saturday’s last-gasp 2-1 win over Poole Town at Clarence Park.

It leaves Saints fourth with seven games to go, the first two of which come this weekend away to Gloucester City on Saturday and then at home to Braintree Town on Easter Monday.

But they have had a full week to prepare something the City manager feels was needed.

Allinson said: “We looked tired and leggy [against Poole] but we’ve had tough trips to Concord and Weston.

“We’ve got to make sure we train correctly, rest at the right times, because we’ve got two tough games against Gloucester and Braintree.

“I watched Gloucester at Wealdstone the other week and they were one of the best sides I’d seen all season.

“They were well-organised, full of energy and deserved to win that game. Since then they’ve just gone from strength to strength.

“They had a reversal on Saturday which has probably just dented where they want to finish.

“And then we’ve got Braintree.

“But when you’re sitting fourth in the table everyone is going to want to give you a tough game.”

One feature of St Albans’ recent form has been the late goals.

The wins against Poole, Weston, Concord and before that Chippenham Town, were all secured with strikes inside the last 20 minutes.

And the boss feels the fitness of the younger members of the squad has helped with that.

Allinson said: “We’ve spoke at length about the last 20 minutes.

“We feel we are a very fit side and we feel that we’ve got great legs and energy and enthusiasm form the youngsters.

“And we’ve said that if we can stay in games until that last 20 minutes then we’ll get stronger and games will open up for us.

“We keep giving ourselves a mountain to climb by going behind and if you give teams in this league a head start it’s always going to be difficult to get anything out of it and we’ve rode our luck at times.

“But they keep working hard and that’s all I want. There’s not many times this year that this little lot have not given me 100 per cent.”