CHIPPENHAM Town manager Mark Collier championed his side’s second-half intensity after a Nat Jarvis header secured a 1-0 win away at Weston-super-Mare in National League South on Saturday.

As has been the case many times this season, Town began the game under the cosh, and it took a while for Collier’s troops to wake up and create a chance of their own.

Nick McCootie had Chippenham’s best first-half chance before Jack Compton crossed for Jarvis to head home in the second and extend their unbeaten run to three games.

Collier was disappointed at his side’s slow start once again, but following a frank exchange of words at the break, felt his players turned into a different side in the second period.

He said: “The game started very quietly for us and Weston had a lot of the ball – they do play quite expansive football, starting from the back.

“After we’d seen that period of pressure off, we had two good chances, but weren’t able to take them – credit to their goalkeeper because he made a couple of really good saves.

“We were disappointed that we hadn’t come in at half-time leading, but I was also disappointed that we hadn’t played with a lot of intensity.

“We had a few words at half-time about what we expected in the second half and once we got ourselves onto the front foot, we were quite dominant in the second half.”

Another pleasing aspect of the result for Collier was the clean sheet for Will Puddy. It was the first time Chippenham recorded a shut out in 22 games.

The Bluebirds boss believes confidence is growing at the club given the progress they are making as they try to establish themselves in the division.

Collier said: “Weston didn’t really threatened us, Will Puddy did not make too many saves, so defensively we were quite strong, and I think they ran out of ideas on how to break us down.

“A clean sheet is quite important to us as are the three big points.

“That’s one defeat in seven now, so we’re going in the right direction and the progression has been good.

“We’ve still got a few injuries which are having a little effect on selection, but we’ve been very competitive of late.

“I think we’re ninth in the league with 10 games to go and the progression continues.”