United striker Danny Graham spoke to BBC Radio Cumbria's Derek Lacey on Saturday evening as he talked about the 2-1 pre-season friendly win at Brunton Park against Blackpool this afternoon, a club Graham has spent time on-loan at in his Middlesbrough days :
" I'm not too sure what the difference was between the two halves to be honest, we went out in the first-half and the first couple of passes were sloppy, that seemed to continue throughout the first-half. In the second-half though, we'd had a bit of a rollocking off the gaffer (Neil McDonald) and Greg (Abbott).
" We've come out in the second-half and started really well, obviously Chris Lumsdon has come on and got that wonder strike which has got us back in the game and turned the momentum for us. Thankfully in the end we've turned a bad performance into a winning result, so it can only be a positive. It was nice to score today, obviously we start the league next week so it's nice to get a goal today and get my confidence boosted up going into the Walsall game.
" I have enjoyed the pre-season but obviously we don't like the running which is a bit intense but that is part and parcel of it. The pre-season is out of the way now though, we've had all the games, everybody is feeling really sharp and are just really looking forward to Walsall next week.
" It would have been nice if the one against Middlesbrough that hit the bar had gone in, I want to score against every team I play against and not just Middlesbrough. I didn't want to go out and prove a point to them and I didn't want to go out and try too hard and have it affect my performance. I hit the bar which was unfortunate.
" Middlesbrough played really well, they've got a really good youth set-up there as you've seen. They came here and they played really well but we gave them a good game, it was just unfortunate that we were beaten.
" I've certainly got a target in mind but I'll tell people that when I get to that milestone, I've got a target, I think most strikers do going into a new season. I've got that target though and I'm sure I'll let you know when I reach it. I've got that target set in my mind, thankfully I've got a goal today which is going to give me confidence going into the Walsall game next week.
" We've had a really good pre-season, we've had a good game against Newcastle and we got a positive result. We played well against Middlesbrough but they just scored two lucky goals to be fair, at the end of the day though it's just all been about match practice. Everybody is feeling really sharp, the team-spirit is spot on down there, hopefully we can take that into Walsall next week.
" It's nice to be winning games and get the winning mentality at the club, thankfully we've got another win today against a team who is higher up in the league than us. Hopefully we can go on to Walsall full of confidence and hopefully go there and get three points. "