Play-off finalists South Shields have achieved nothing yet - warns manager Ian Watson

Ian Watson has warned South Shields they ‘haven’t achieved anything yet’ as they prepare for Saturday’s National League North play-off final showdown with Kidderminster Harriers.

The Mariners have enjoyed a largely positive first season under the former MK Dons and Gateshead assistant manager after reaching the FA Cup first round and pushing for the National League North title until the final day of the regular season. Thoughts of sneaking top spot were ended by a narrow defeat at Kidderminster as AFC Fylde were crowned champions to land a place in next season’s National League and leave Watson and his players to focus on pushing for promotion via the play-offs.

In securing runners-up spot in non-league’s second tier, Watson’s men have wrote themselves into the Mariners record books as it represented the highest league finish in the history of this iteration of South Shields. However, Watson has stressed the work is far from done as his squad look to join Fylde in the National League next season by claiming a win over Harriers.

When asked if he was proud of his side’s achievements this season, the Mariners boss told The Gazette: “Not at the moment to be honest. We have a job to do on Saturday so I’m not looking at how we finished in a certain position or what the previous teams have done at this football club. I’m just really focused on Saturday and if we get beat on Saturday, finishing second may look good in a couple of years when we look back at it - but it will really hurt on Saturday and it’ll hurt for a long time so I’m focused on making sure there is nothing sentimental about this game. We haven’t achieved anything yet, we are in work mode and we really need to work hard on Saturday to work hard.”

‘Take the pressure off’

Saturday’s hard-earned semi-final win against Buxton took the Mariners within 90 minutes of a possible historic promotion and one that would take them within one step of a spot in the EFL. However, the physical and mental impact of coming through a difficult test against the Derbyshire outfit were still being felt in the days after the game. Once again, Premier League neighbours Sunderland have come to the Mariners aid as Watson and his players prepare for their play-off final at the Academy of Light - and the Mariners boss has revealed he has taken a different approach to training in recent days.

“There in a good place this week,” he explained. “We’ve really focused on recovery and making sure the batteries were recharged because we know that Saturday took a lot out of them in terms of emotional. There was a lot at stake and I think the boys really felt that. So we just wanted to take the pressure off them a little bit in terms of intensity and physicality and how much we normally expect them to run during the week. It’s more been tactical, game-plan, looking at the opposition and how we can stop them as well.”

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