Richard O'Kelly reveals the tricks of his trade

"React!"

"They all take the mickey out of me," says O'Kelly, "because all I shout is 'react, react.' But anyone can make a mistake. It's what you do next that counts. It's how you react; how you react as one, as a unit."

And 'react' is what training will be all about as the Saddlers endeavour to get back on track against Carlisle this weekend following Tuesday's little hiccup against Orient.

In O'Kelly, they have just the man to do it, one of this footballing region's hardy annuals, highly-valued by a line of gaffers stretching from Graham Turner to Dean Smith to help a team navigate its way through the harsh English winter.

O'Kelly is 55 now, still full of boundless enthusiasm and good humour and "older and wiser" for all those years learning his craft at Walsall, Grimsby, Albion, Doncaster and more convinced than ever that it is not just the footballer he must reach and educate.

"As a coach, you don't just want to produce good footballers, you want to produce good people," he said.

"There is nothing more satisfying for me than to see someone who I may have worked with earlier in life doing well for themselves 10, 15 years later.

"In many ways the football will take care of itself. They've all got ability or they would not have got this far in the first place. Are they interested in working hard and discovering why it may not have quite happened for them yet?

"We're not naive here, Dean Smith and I. We know we have to look for footballers who haven't quite made it.

"We have to bring them here and get them to realise they haven't quite made it, why that is the case and get them to understand that it's not what you do but how you do it that really counts.

"We want to work with them and develop them and we know there is a good chance we will lose them as they will be sold on at some point because that is how the club survives.

"But the challenge is getting the penny to drop with some of them and seeing if you can change their outlook.

"If you can, that's when you see them really starting to develop."

Wise words for life, not just football, from this 55-year-old former Post Office engineer, who more than 30 years ago was plucked from non-league Alvechurch – along with so many of his contemporaries – to begin a sturdy goalscoring career in the lower divisions.

He was there when Alan Buckley's team dared to challenge mighty Liverpool, he was there when it won promotion; he was alongside his old Alvechurch team-mate Sean O'Driscoll when Doncaster Rovers made it to the second tier.

The tough times have been as valuable as the successes. O'Kelly even survived seven years and four managers while coaching at Albion as the club's 1990s decline hit the bottom of its trough.

Last year, he was persuaded to try to save Hereford from relegation over the last 12 games.

It was too little too late but O'Kelly declined the offer to stay and lead the fight back to the league, having no stomach to oversee the redundancies of his predecessor's staff. "That would not have been right," he said.

So here he is, back at Smith's side and helping a Walsall team packed with the type of players he is talking about, surprising the League One intelligentsia.

Tipped as relegation certainties, these young Saddlers are making a bit of a name for themselves although O'Kelly is desperate to ensure an even view of the rise and fall of results that comes with any campaign.

"Let's keep level-headed shall we? I understand people getting excited because of what's been happening but if the results don't come we can't get too down on ourselves either," he counsels.

"You try to be consistent with them.

"In England, a few good games and you're the best player in the country. A few bad ones and you are the worst. That's no good to anyone. Try to be consistent with the players so that everybody knows where they stand.

"I did an interview for a job once over the phone and it was said to me that I hadn't worked with top level footballers.

"But they are all the same. Whether they are 11 years of age or a top Premier League star – they need a structure and way of doing things that works for them and brings out the best in them. That never changes. And that's what we will keep trying to do."