New U's boss Dunne will want to make his mark (From Essex County Standard)

New U's boss Dunne will want to make his mark

5:34pm Thursday 27th September 2012 in Sport By Jonathan Waldron

Paul Clark believes his former player Joe Dunne will be determined to make his own mark as Colchester United boss.

Dunne was today named as the U's new manager.

Clark managed Dunne at Gillingham, in the early part of his playing career.

He also worked alongside the Irishman during his caretaker spell in charge of the U’s, in 2009.

Former Southend United manager Clark feels Dunne can be a big success as U’s boss.

And he is sure that his former player can rise to the challenge of lifting Colchester up the League One table.

Clark said: “Joe always wants to do whatever he sets his mind to do to the very best of his ability.

“He will work very hard to make sure that he takes his opportunities and his ambitions are limitless.

“One of the problems that he could encounter is that he was a part of John Ward’s team.

“The first thing he has got to do is to make some kind of difference, so that everyone knows that there’s a new man in charge.

“He may have to change things to make that point and that might mean changing things around on the training ground.

“Joe’s ambitions are for management and he feels working with John Ward gave him a lot of responsibility.

“Every experience that you have along the way helps.

“I’m sure he has taken something from the last time he was in caretaker charge.

“More important though is the interim period in between and he knows he can communicate with senior players.

“Joe has been in the game a long time now.

“There are things that go unnoticed like the coaching courses and Joe will have met a lot of people at those kind of things.

“There’s a lot of networking that goes on and I’m sure that he will have met many different coaches, over the years.”

See the Gazette for all the latest U's news and more on Joe Dunne's appointment as the club's new manager.