Chris Martin hailed City’s professionalism after the League One champions recorded a comfortable 3-0 victory at Bristol Rovers on Saturday.
The Beccles-born striker hit his 23rd goal of a fruitful campaign after 31 minutes and with Oli Johnson and Stephen Hughes also getting on the scoresheet, it was an end-of-season stroll for the Championship-bound Canaries.
But as poor as Rovers’ defending was, Paul Lambert’s men had their professional hats on for the trip to the West Country and under the guidance of the Scot, we shouldn’t have expected anything else.
It was a record 12th away for Norwich and by reaching 95 points – their highest total ever – it proved to very satisfying afternoon indeed, with the gap to second-placed Leeds now a whopping 12 points.
“We’ve got a good record away from home this season and we showed it here,” said Martin, speaking to BBC Radio Norfolk after the match.
“It was a bit of a funny one going into it because both teams were done and dusted for the season but we went into it with the right attitude and it turned out to be a half-decent game.
“The manager wants to win as many games as possible and so do we. We want to win every game, whether we’re already promoted or not and we showed a good attitude.
“The lads got at them early, got amongst them and we got our rewards.”
Canary chief Lambert made a few changes, with some tired legs in the camp after a long, hard season, and one of those, Matt Gill, put in an excellent performance in the engine room.
And Martin believes that the introduction of a few of fringe players helped keep the regulars on their toes, as well as proving that this City squad has genuine strength in depth.
“They are still hungry for a start and to try and impress the manager,” continued the former Academy youngster, who will be desperate to carry his goalscoring form into the second tier in 2010/11.
“A few of them haven’t played many games this year and that works in our favour as well because that makes sure we don’t take our foot off the pedal.
“But I don’t think that was ever going to be the case and we showed good professionalism, as well as playing some good football at times.
“We could have scored a few more, we played really well and the team created some good attacking moves. All credit to us for showing the professionalism, as I said, and getting the job done.”
Saturday’s clash at the Memorial Stadium saw another terrific following take to the road, with some 1,800 making the long trek from Norfolk.
And after clocking up some serious miles this season, both players and supporters will be glad to stay put for a while, before City’s return to the Championship in August. As always, however, it will come around before you know it.
“We’ve had some long old trips on the bus but fortunately we’ve been able to fly to a few as well. It’ll be nice to have a rest now as the travelling takes it out of you a little bit.
“It’s a long, hard slog and geographically where Norwich is, it’s always a long trip. But that’s the dedication that us and our loyal supporters have shown and we’re thankful that they’ve supported us so well and helped us to achieve what we have this season.”
Don’t go too far away this week as we’ll have a column or two for you to enjoy, as well as all the news and views from Colney ahead of Saturday’s League One finale against Carlisle at Carrow Road.
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