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Barry on Stoke draw

GARETH Barry was pleased to finally make his Hawthorns bow in the draw with Stoke and believes that the team have made a strong start to the new season.

“It was nice to get the home debut under my belt,” said the midfielder. 

“Before the season you’d have taken our start. Obviously being ahead at home with 20 minutes to go and not winning is the disappointing thing but we’ll learn from that.

“They had a lot of the ball in the first half and caused us a few problems with their shape and formation, but in the second half we got to grips with it.

“We got hold of the ball a bit more and got it into the box and started causing them problems. It’s something again for us to build on.

“The bigger picture is that we’ve got seven points out of a possible nine, so we’re reasonably happy.”

Barry was also glad to see Jay Rodriguez get his first Premier League goal and hopes the forward will kick on after the international break.

“He’s working really hard and taking his chances now,” he said.

“Any striker needs to be scoring goals, so hopefully his confidence will grow and grow into the next games.”

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