So in their first foray into management with Eastwood CFC, it’s perhaps not surprising that their attitude was very quickly geared towards expecting similar from the players of whom they were now in charge.
But Thomas, a goal machine of a striker in his playing days, now believes that ethos ultimately may have been the reason why the Red Badgers ultimately fell away from the promotion race last season to finish eighth in the UCL Premier North.
This season, however, things are different.
"Going into pre-season, we looked at how things had gone and realised we probably put too much pressure on ourselves to go up,” he said.
"When it was our first full season of management, a lot of the time we were playing in sides going for promotions and I think we naturally took that into our management expectations.
"So we looked at what we needed to do and where to strengthen and recruited really well. We’ve brought in players with great experience at steps three and four, or who won the league last year – so the likes of Phil Watt, Declan Dunn, Jake Wright, Craig Westcarr and Ricky Starbuck.
"That’s elevated everything, even managing the dressing room. At times in the previous 18 months we’d felt a bit like we were babysitting as there was lots of managing the lads and being a mentor, but such is the experience we have now, a lot of that strain is off our shoulders now and it’s allowed us to just be managers.
"We have a core leadership group now. They manage for us in some ways which is great – it drags the standards of the younger players up, or they don’t play.”
The evidence so far is that the changes are working. Going into last weekend’s games, Eastwood were a point clear of Lincoln United, who were play-off semi-finalists last year.
And whilst there’s still a long way to go, Thomas says he and Ball have been pleased with the progress made.
He said: “If you’d offered us where we are now at the start, we’d have snapped your hand off. We’ve dropped some points here and there which was disappointing but that will happen.
"Despite the experience in the team, the squad is overall a bit younger. Last year we got some injuries around Christmas to players like Tom Maddison, Danny Elliott and Alex Troke and ran out of legs, so we wanted to go a bit younger where we could in the summer.
"Getting to the fourth round of the FA Vase and the semi-final of the Notts Senior Cup also played a part.
"Players like Watt and Wright weren’t on our radar but were without clubs and if you don’t ask, you don’t know. We had to be a bit reactive to injuries too – we signed Rob Norris but he then did his ACL the week before the season.
"But we’ve also got a couple of young lads in there too, in Fin Commons and Toby Woodward, who were with the U16s last season and have been a breath of fresh air, with that youthful enthusiasm. We used pre-season to bed them in and they’ve been in most of the squads this season.
"We’re lucky to have a good group of academy players which is something the previous chairman Darryl Claypole was passionate about, namely having that pathway to the first team.
"The junior section here has 320 kids, so a massive nucleus of players meaning a few players at least should be getting through. Some clubs’ academies don’t have any players getting into the first team but for us it’s a non-negotiable.”
As for expectations this season, Thomas says the start Eastwood have made will naturally create an expectation that the form will continue, but knows it’s not always that simple.
He said: “We need to keep up the momentum. We can never be disrespectful to any club and before the start of the season I had teams like Melton and Lincoln to be up there and didn’t have us in that pack, despite knowing we are a good team.
"When we are at it I fancy us against anyone. The first few weeks have shown we have a chance of competing for the league and we’ll take it game by game.
"There’s always a surprise package. The season before last we finished fourth bottom so we weren’t expected to do so well last year. There are lots of decent sides in there that can go on streaks and will fancy it.
"But I’ve got a full belief in what we’ve got. We’ll keep our feet on the ground, as it’s early days yet, but we have a great squad with a mix of youth and experience.”
See next week’s Advertiser for the second part of the interview with Daryll Thomas, where he talks about the role of his club in the community, as well as how he is finding being a manager.