"We were very good today," says McGrath after Town's home win over Yeovil

Second-half goals from Cody Johnson and Will Flint saw Town get back on track after their midweek home defeat to Barrow.

"We were very good today," McGrath told the Courier. "There's always a chance in the back of the players' minds that they focus too much on Tuesday night.

"But my conversation with them on Thursday when we did our post-match analysis was 'you were excellent for 70 minutes'.

"It was a blip, a little blip, but today the boys have got straight back on the front foot again and played some really good football.

"I thought we were excellent in possession.

"We brought Tayt out and put Will Hugill in, we rested Cruz. We brought Lucas in at right-back, who I thought did really, really well, and Deniche had to cover for Raheem's suspension, and Tommy came in at number ten.

"I keep saying to the players that they will get opportunities and they will play, they're all going to be needed.

"The lads who started today were excellent. Tommy McDermott grew into the game.

"What impressed me most was the work rate, people like Owen Bray, who's been out of the team for a long period of time now, came onto the bench, came on and did really well, worked hard, as did Morgs.

"I thought Conor Carty was exceptional today. People will look from outside and say he's only got four or five goals but for me, he's absolutely priceless.

"His work rate allows people like Ben Tollitt, Connor Douglas, Zak Gilsenan, Cruz Allen, Tommy McDermott to get on the ball and make us tick.

"Really, really pleased and at vital times in the game, the back four were superb, and True Grant as well."

On what the message to his team was at half-time, with the game goalless, McGrath said: "We were very ball-dominant in the first-half, we missed some really, really good chances, Conor Carty had a header, the keeper makes a good save. Had a lot of corners, free-kicks.

"I didn't want us to particularly go chasing because I thought we were well on top, the message was same again.

"And I knew I had an arsenal of seven very good players to come on if needed and affect the game."

Yeovil have enjoyed an excellent start to the season but were made to look distinctly average by The Shaymen.

"They're a good side and they've got very, very good players, and they're coached really well, he's a good manager," McGrath said of the visitors.

"But for me, it was always going to be us on the front foot, it doesn't matter if we're playing Boreham Wood - we tried to go toe-to-toe with them - Forest Green, Hartlepool, whoever it may be, whoever comes here, we'll try and give them the best version of us.

"Today we did, we went toe-to-toe and I thought individually, we had more dominant individual performances than they did."

McGrath was delighted with the performance of debutant Lucas Houghton at right-back, who he said has been on his radar for a while.

"He has, but obviously with having Max, Dylan and AJ it was always a position I felt we were really well covered in," said the Town boss.

"Then you have the incident to AJ, who is out for a couple of months, then you're down to two and your whole back four are chucked up in arms on Saturday because you have Max out for a few months as well.

"We were quite lucky in that we had our eye on him and I must give credit to my head of recruitment Gareth McClelland here, he keeps his eyes on lots of players for me.

"I took my dog for a walk on Sunday and he must be sick of me because I went for a 12-mile walk with the dog and I was on the phone for ten miles of that with Gareth talking about full-backs!

"We had a really good list of players and he'd watched Lucas eight times and said he was one for how we play, he's more Max Bardell-esque than anybody else, which is what we were looking for.

"He was excellent was Lucas.

"I must give credit to Tommy McDermott as well, not played a lot of football. His last league start here he got dragged off after 30 minutes.

"But credit to him, his training levels have never gone down.

"Deniche also came in on the back of not playing many games, I'm really lucky in that my full-back departments are really good.

"Raheem would have been a loss had we not had someone like Deniche. Again, he's not played a lot of football, he went down with a bit of cramp, so to keep everything fresh, we brought on Dylan Crowe.

"He was disappointed not to start because he started on Tuesday. It wasn't his performance on Tuesday night I changed the team for, it was just I felt Lucas and Connor Douglas would give us that outlet out there."

McGrath said attacking midfielder Cruz Allen was rested.

"We understand the situation with Cruz in that he's 19 years of age and he's started the last seven games for us and done really well," McGrath said.

"But I witnessed a little dip, and because his standards are so high, when he does have a little dip, it's noticeable.

"We spoke Friday, we spoke openly and he's a really mature, honest kid, and he said 'gaffer, I totally agree with you, it's my first run of games in my career, my first loan'.

"I didn't even have the conversation with Derby County because they said 'you've got to manage him how you'd manage one of your own young lads'.

"Cruz will come back in again. We might rest him again Tuesday so he's fit and fresh to go on Saturday at Cheltenham."