On-loan midfielder Jack Smith knows personal benefits will follow if Dartford are successful.

The 21-year-old has made a big impression with the Darts in National League South.

His long-term future may remain unclear but Smith’s only focus for now is to enjoy a positive second half to the campaign, having extended his deal at Princes Park to the end of the season.

“You’re always playing in the shop window,” said Smith, who penned a new two-year deal at Stevenage in 2021.

“No matter how long contracts are, you are always fighting for a new one at the end of the day.

“You’ve got to play for yourself but you’ve also got to play for the team. Effectively, if we win promotion this year that’s only going to benefit me and everyone else in the club, that’s the real aim.

“It’s not just myself, everyone in the club, including the staff, wants to go up and give this league a right good go.

“They’ve talked about being in the play-offs here for the last few years so this season we want to go one better and get promoted. Everyone in the changing room wants the same thing so we’re just going to fight towards that.

“We’ve got to take it game by game and keep picking up points. As long as we keep picking up our points, we can’t worry about anyone else.

“Come the end of the season we’ll see where it is but if we keep going as we are then I think we’ll be right up there.”

Smith finished last season on loan at Kettering but hasn’t featured under former Gillingham boss Steve Evans this campaign at League 2 Boro.

“It was a fairly new manager and he hadn’t seen me play, really,” said Smith.

“I went back for pre-season and gave it a real good go to see what I could do and if I could change his mind or affect his team.

“It turned out that it wasn’t to be so I started looking at loans and trying to get regular first-team football. I came here and I‘ve had that regular football that I’m looking for. It was a no-brainer really to extend to the end of the season.”

Last Saturday’s 2-0 home win over Chippenham was a first victory in four league games for Dartford.

They had moved to the top of the table after twice beating Ebbsfleet over the festive period but Smith conceded that it was always going to be tough to reach those heights in every game.

“The Ebbsfleet games went so well, hardly anything went wrong for 180 minutes so you can’t keep those standards up every time,” he said.

“There’s going to be blips, there’s going to be twists and turns so we’ve got to limit the amount of games where we were down and now it’s a good start for us to kick on again.”

Smith didn’t have the greatest of starts to his time at Dartford. Even boss Alan Dowson quipped the pitch needed to be turned sideways as he kept passing the ball out of play.

But he’s come good now and will have a key role to play in the run-in.

“I didn’t think it would be this good,” he added. “I didn’t know what to expect when I came in, I didn’t have the best of starts but now we’ve kicked on.

“I was a long time out and there were some rusty legs in those first games. I wasn’t playing my best stuff for sure and I know that. Thankfully the gaffer knew that wasn’t my best stuff, too, and he kept faith in me and I kept playing.

“When I started to get that match fitness back, I put in some better performances and helped the team, and here we are again.

“I want to keep doing it, I know I’ve got more and I want to show what I can do right to the end of the season.”

Smith took just 66 seconds to score the opener against Chippenham - his fourth goal for Dartford.

It was a positive start that they had been lacking in recent weeks.

“That was important for us, coming into the game to start fast and it was something we haven’t done in the last few weeks,” he added.

“The first 10-15 minutes was crucial to get back to how we like to play, especially with the fans here to get them behind us.

“When we go forward we’ve got people that like to get behind and deliver crosses in so me and Luke Allen, especially, it’s in our mind to get in the box and make up the numbers.

“Strikers aren’t always going to be there to tap them in so other people have got to make runs and thankfully we both managed to put one in.

“Every pressure is the same on each game, you’ve got to do what you can to get the three points. Two goals and a clean sheet, not a lot what went wrong last weekend.

“Now we’ve got to kick on and not only do it last week, but do it next week and the week after. We’ve got to keep going.”