Jack Rudoni took a vital step on the road to recovery last night – and the 19-year-old midfielder is determined to stake a claim for more first-team opportunities.
After his impressive breakthrough season - ‘Rudi’ made 12 appearances in all competitions in 2019/20 – he endured a frustrating spell before getting 45 minutes under his belt last night.
“My fitness felt good, I’ve been working with Chris (McConnell) throughout the week and he’s been putting me though my paces,” said Jack. “I’ve got back with the boys, and it doesn’t feel like I’ve been out for eight weeks.
“In the Corinthian Casuals match I suffered from concussion and weirdly it took longer than it normally would to recover from. I kept on getting these symptoms, so it was frustrating, but it has cleared up now, and it’s great to be back out there. I just want to keep pushing.
“There is a lot of competition (in midfield) and we are all fighting for places. We are helping each other and pushing each other in training. I am just focusing on myself as I want to help the team to get three points every week.
“I’ve been itching to get back out there for a while now. It was a disappointing result, but there were some positives. We just need to work together a bit more, but I think we are heading in the right direction. We’ve not had a bad start to the season and we just need to pick-up some wins now. I know we’ve got the quality in the squad to pick-up wins, so we just need to show it now. It’s just little mistakes that we need to get out of the way and we have a good squad.”
Take a look below at Rob Cornell’s interview with Jack and you can also watch the highlights from last night’s 2-0 defeat, which almost ended with a consolation goal by Rudi in the final minute.