CRAIG Edwards has praised the impact the captaincy has had on Richard Halle this season.

The Billericay Town defender was made skipper at the start of last term and Edwards says he has watched Halle grow in the past year.

The central defender scored the winning goal in Monday night’s 2-1 win against Brentwood Town in the Ryman League Cup – which was his 11th goal of the season.

And Edwards says the 32-year-old is one of a number of captains in his dressing room.

“We are lucky to have Rich and lucky he is doing so well in front of goal,” exclaimed the Town manager. “He has always had that in his locker. He has been in and out of my teams since he was about 16 and ten years ago I even played him on the left wing. He scored 16 goals for me then and he hasn’t stopped.

“He is a big presence and everyone respects him and he is getting better all the time. But we have about three or four leaders in that dressing room and I think that is an important aspect in any team.”

Edwards confirmed two more dressing-room captains had handed him a big boost ahead of the New Year.

Callum Dunne and George Beavan had been expected to miss the season after being ruled out of action with serious knee injuries at the start of the campaign.

But Dunne is now expected to return at the end of January, with Beavan not long behind as he prepares to have another scan on the injury in the coming weeks.

“It will be like having two new players back,” said Edwards. “We have missed them on the pitch and in the dressing room, so it is a real bonus.”

Rowan Liburd was the scorer of Town’s other goal against Brentwood, his first strike for the club, to set up a home tie with AFC Hornchurch.

And Edwards said his side did well with only 14 first-team players available.

“We played some of the best football I have seen this season in the first half,” he said, “but we didn’t have enough cutting edge. But after the break we asked more questions of their defence and scored two good goals.

“The goal we gave away was very poor but we reacted in the right way to it and had Rich to thank for scoring an excellent winner.”