THE impact of York City’s substitutions delighted manager Adam Hinshelwood.

York headed down to Essex for the opening match of their Vanarama National League season, leaving Southend United with a 1-1 draw.

Southend had initially opened the scoring as a free-kick saw Jack Bridge find Gus Scott-Morriss in the area, who glanced a header into the far corner to beat Harrison Male.

Travelling City supporters, who had to overcome difficulties with public transport, were rewarded for their efforts as Lenell John-Lewis came off of the bench to power home a header from a corner kick.

Hinshelwood was joyed with the impact of his York substitutes, including Tyrese Sinclair and Ashley Nathaniel-George, and feels that City need to show improvement when defending set-pieces.

“I think that the impact that the substitutions had was excellent, there were lots of positives from today [Saturday],” Hinshelwood enthused.

“We can improve and get better in certain areas, and we’ll look to do that on the training pitch, but in the main it was a really good away performance.

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“Our standards are now nice and high, we’ve set some good standards here today and ultimately we need to keep that consistency to our play.

“I think he’s [John-Lewis] getting a bit of a stick, and that’s probably why, from their fans.

“He’s an absolute role model, a great character and we’re delighted that he has come on and got his goal.

“Him [Nathaniel-George] and Ty, I thought that they both came on and did really well.

“There was some real intent and I think there’s even more to come from Ash, if I am being honest then he is nowhere near fully fit yet.

“There’s more to come from this team and individuals as well, and it’s down to us to get it out of them."

Hinshelwood was disappointed however with the manner of goal that York conceded, and feels that defending set-pieces is a problem that needs to be rectified for City.

Hinshelwood admitted: "Initially I thought that it was a soft foul, a bit of their game plan was to get it in the final third and then to win free-kicks, and they’ve done that.

“We’ve got to be a little bit stronger, I said to the back four in particular that we’ve got to deal with aerial balls a bit better and win our duels, and they’ve done that in the second-half.

“It’s disappointing, it’s another set-piece and we’ve conceded from quite a few set-pieces in pre-season so it is something that we have got to address.

“I’m pleased that we got another goal from our set-piece game, that seems to be working for us.

“It’s an area for us to improve on, we don’t want to be conceding that many goals from set-pieces as they are cheap goals to concede.

“We’ve got to improve on it.”

Hinshelwood also provided an update on the City captaincy, with Callum Howe taking the armband at kick-off.

However, after John-Lewis’ second-half introduction, Howe handed over the captaincy to ‘the Shop’, with Hinshelwood explaining the decision-making process.

“I think it’s a respect thing from the players, they see him as a leader and the club captain, he runs the dressing room him and Paddy [McLaughlin].

“ It’s respect from Callum Howe to Len.”