Chester 0-5 Barnet
Lee Cook has challenged Barnet to kick on following their 5-0 victory at 10-man Chester on Saturday.
The former QPR striker, who joined the Bees last week, scored in each half to help his new team sit top of the Conference Premier after the opening weekend.
And the 32-year-old has told his team-mates they need to carry on that form if they are to push for promotion back to the Footbal League.
“Any win would have done, just to get the winning mentality and the spirit going, but to win 5-0 is fantastic for us," he said.
A victory like that is just what you need on the first game of the season and we’ve just got to keep going now.”
Although Cook was delighted to kickstart his career at Barnet off with a brace he made it clear that he's not he's not fully fit yet.
“I’ve only had a couple of games during pre-season so I’m still finding my fitness a little bit, but I’m getting there," he added.
"I said to the gaffer the other day that I’ll only need one or two games and I’ll be up to full speed, but it was nice to get a couple of goals as it just gives you that extra little bit of confidence.”
Cooks double, along with goals from Andy Yiadom and a penalty from Charlie MacDonald put the Bees in a commanding position as Chester's Danny Harrison was shown a straight red after a high tackle on new signing Sam Togwell.
Goalkeeper Graham Stack tremendously kept a clean sheet after saving a penalty deep in to first half stoppage time from Chester's John Rooney while second half substitute Keanu Marsh-Brown finished the scoring with the fifth.
And Barnet manager Martin Allen praised the efforts of his team despite the Bees arriving at the stadium half an hour before kick off:
He added: “I warned all of our players that they had to be at their best to get anything here and my god, we tackled, we were courageous with the ball and we played great football.”
Every shot that we hit went in, the defending right the way through the team from the front, and the attacking play was all very good. We’ve got some players that can win us games and they did that today.”
However the Bees boss emphasised the importance to move on from his sides opening day heroics and to focus on a challenging week ahead.
“We’ve got two games this week against Bristol Rovers and Lincoln City to come and now we’ve got to make the next step," he said.
"You only get three points for this win today; you don’t get any more than that. Now we have to take it to the next game.”
