“Maintaining our intensity will leave us feeling our best”

Jonny Burkardt: “I want to perform as best I can to help Mainz 05, and I’m doing that at the moment. After my injury, I feel mentally stronger, I feel fitter than ever and better at overcoming setbacks. While wearing the armband, it’s my job to lead the way, first and foremost with my performances. If me playing well then helps my teammates to do the same, that makes me happy. With today’s result it’s a decent start to the season. Of course, we had higher expectations for the home games and have put a lot of pressure on ourselves to build on that in the second half of the season. Eight points and a place in mid-table is satisfactory, but we definitely want to show the fans more, especially at home.”

Niko Bungert: “The game certainly went better for us today than one or two games recently. We didn’t have quite as much possession and concentrated on being compact, defending well and the transition play. We were also very efficient and grew into it with every passing minute. Before the break it was a real battle with lots of passion, but in the second half we gained more and more confidence, played better football and wore St. Pauli down. The third goal settled things down.”

Robin Zentner: “If you just looked at the result or just watched the second half, it would seem to have been a clear-cut affair. It didn’t feel like that before the break though. We were too deep and gave too much away. It’s obvious how important the two goals before that were. After making it 3-0, we played solidly and calmly. It is a mixed feeling right now. We can live with the result, but we have to keep working hard. We need that stability of the second half over 90 minutes. Maintaining our intensity will leave us feeling our best.”