SET piece supremo Richard Dobson said Wanderers' success from dead balls this season is down to the players' creativity on the training ground.

Post match the players are always quick to acknowledge the Blues' assistant manager's role in coming up with the set piece routines that break down other teams, paving the way for their good start to the season.

But Dobson said that while he refines the final routines, he insists it's very much a democracy at the ideas stage.

He said: "The best coaches are those that ignite fires, they don't fill buckets - by which I mean you put the problems in front of the players and they solve it. That's how I try and work - I don't want to be the one who's constantly telling them what they should be doing and how they should be doing it, I want to put them in situations where they have to be intelligent players and do it themselves. I'll have a bit of input into where I think it can be bettered.

"I've tried to encourage the boys to be more creative themselves. On a Friday I say to them, come and show me a set piece you think you can show off in a game, they'll try something and I'll try and tweak it.

"We tried one at the weekend which we came up with between myself, JJ [Joe Jacobson], Hayesy, Murph and Woody.

"We always try and drop a different one in now and again. We've got one setup where there's four different outcomes from the same setup. If the scout's up there and watching one of the routines, next time he sees the same routine start, it's going to be something different.

"You plan ahead because you know people are going to be keeping a watchful eye on what you do."

Dobson said statistics show around half of all goals scored in League Two come from set pieces, and Wanderers' management team bore that in mind during their summer recruitment process.

He said: "The new players have brought a greater technical ability and knowhow of the league. They have been really bright and brought the best out of the players who were at the club previously.

"We identified the players we wanted early on and fortunately we got the ones we wanted.

"JJ was one of those. We know he's got a wand of a left foot and that was crucial. The delivery is vital at set pieces."

So far this season Blues have scored seven goals from corners or free kicks and conceded two - the best ratio in the last three years, according to Dobson.

He said: "Last year we scored directly from more set pieces than we conceded. What our problem was, was the second phase. We'd clear them and then when the ball's been put back in, we weren't organised well enough to defend second phases.

"We've got greater height, there's more discipline across the team now - that all contributes."

Dobson added: "We conceded a really poor one against Mansfield. We warned the boys that was a strength of theirs, but after that they switched on. They had something like 16 corners and we defended pretty admirably after that."