AFTER the excitement of our Capital One Cup tie at West Brom on Tuesday its back to the bread and butter at Scunthorpe today – and I can’t wait to get stuck in!

Hopefully I’ll be involved again, either from the bench or maybe even from the start.

The West Brom game was good for me. I just need the match fitness now. I’m picking it up match by match. I started off with ten minutes against Bristol Rovers, 15 minutes at Dagenham and around 40 minutes at the Hawthorns.

The result wasn’t what we wanted but we played pretty well and if we’d taken our chances it could have been a very different game.

West Brom are a great side and they took their chances like you’d expect a Premier League side to do. Their class stood out in the end.

I’ve been lucky enough to play at West Brom a few times but it was a good experience for the youngsters to play at a Premier League stadium.

We could have laid down at 3-0 but that is not in our nature. The gaffer wouldn’t have let us do that and we showed the fight and the character in our side in that second half.

And we’ll need to show that again this afternoon. The cup was a bonus for us really. The main priority is League Two and it doesn’t come much tougher than Scunthorpe away.

It’s the first overnight stay of the season so there are a couple of nervous boys who know they’ll have to sing for their supper, as I said last week.

It’s a good chance for the boys to get together and you get to know each other a bit better away from the training ground, especially when you are rooming with someone.

I don’t know who I’m with yet but I hope its Tony James. He’s a good lad Jamo because he runs the bath for me, makes me a coffee and he doesn’t snore. You can’t ask for anything more really!

The gaffer probably won’t want me anywhere near his room in case I bother him with my tactical input.

I did my coaching B Licence last season and I’m doing my A Licence this year at Dragon Park, the FAW’s new training facility in Newport.

When you get to my age you realise that your career won’t go on forever and I want to be as prepared as I can for when I do have to hang up my boots.

There are some great coaches down there like Osian Roberts, Craig Hill and Carl Darlington.

And I’ve got the likes of Sol Campbell and Patrick Vieira doing it with me, and Gary Monk from Swansea, so it is a great group to be involved with and to learn from and it’s brilliant for me that it’s all in Newport as well.

It is something that I’m really enjoying and on top of my journalism degree it will add another string to my bow when I retire.

I’ve got Patrick and Sol following County’s results now and we keep in contact with texts. They are great lads and I’m lucky to have met them.

I’ve been shouting out tactical advice to the gaffer, Jimmy Dack and Wayne Hatswell from the bench and driving them mad.

They’ll probably be glad when I’m back on the pitch and out of the way! But they’ve been great as well and encouraged me to go into coaching.

I fancy going into management eventually. Not yet, because I still feel I’ve got a few years left and I want to play on as long as I can, but this course gives me time to plan.

I’ll be 32 when I finish it and if I can play to 35 then I’ll be ahead of the game when I retire. And hopefully County will be in the Premier League by then!