Sean O'Driscoll vows Walsall will rebound

Head coach Sean O'Driscoll believes Walsall will learn quickly from their disappointing defeat against Rochdale.

Keith Hill's side left the Banks's Stadium with a deserved 3-0 victory on Saturday following a game in which the Saddlers were second best throughout.

But, despite the nature of the defeat, the boss believes his 'resilient' players will quickly back to their best.

He said: "People will talk about bouncing back, but we can bounce back on Monday morning. A team doesn't come this far without having a great deal of resilience.

"They are footballers and the only certainty about football is that there are going to be times when you play poorly and get beat. That is just the game and the players are used to it

"The players will dust themselves down, learn from it and head into the second half of the season with confidence.

"Definitely we have to be a team that, when things are not going our way, we are harder to beat. Does that mean sacrificing trying to play football?

"There is a delicate balancing act to conjure up."

The game was Walsall's fifth in 19 days while Rochdale had played just three in that time.

Yet O'Driscoll refused to use tired legs as an excuse, after the Dale produced a performance Hill described as the best of managerial career.

He said: "All in all it was one of those games that if we started it again now we would approach it differently and the players would have a better understanding of what they needed to do.

"We have done extremely well up to now but you have to realistic, you can't take anything for granted and you can't win every game.

"The fixture schedule is what it is. It would have been nice to have had more preparation time.

"We have not been able to train properly but there are no excuses. On the day, we weren't good enough."