Gillingham first-team coach Nicky Southall writes exclusively for the KM Group
Published: 08:00, 09 March 2012
There is equal amounts of good news and bad news around here at the moment.
While we are getting some fantastic results on the pitch, we are also having a rough time with injuries.
On Tuesday night we found out Garry Richards had broken his leg and we really feel for him as he had been doing fantastic. It put a downer on what was a great result against Barnet.
It looks like he is now going to be missing for three months minimum. It was a nasty incident but the boys will lift his spirits.
It’s amazing the way things are going with the injuries. We were sat in the office after Tuesday’s game wondering just how many more problems we were going to get.
The chairman was at the game and before he heads home we were hoping to ask him if we can do to try and bring a few new faces in.
At least there is some positive news on the injury front with Matt Fish and Andy Frampton returning to training this week. Kingy was sent home ill on Tuesday but hopefully he will be OK for the weekend. Hopefully, Danny Kedwell will come through as well.
He was the latest one to pick up a virus and was sick before the game against Barnet. The doctor gave him an injection to stop the sickness but when he came in at half-time, he was pale and out on his feet so we took him off.
Despite all the problems, the lads put in a fantastic performance to come back from 1-0 down at half-time.
Dennis Oli returned and showed everyone what he can do. He scored a great goal and was back to his best with that pace and power he has. Ashley Miller was making his first start and was terrific, a real threat.
That win came just days after a victory at Plymouth which was unbelievable and for me it was the stand-out performance of the season so far.
Forget the 5-4 win over Hereford or the 5-2 at Torquay, this one was a gutsy display, against a team fighting for their lives and despite playing with just 10 men for three quarters of the game, we won 1-0.
It was a great goal from Joe Martin to win it and I feel sorry for him to have then been sent-off, for a second booking that even their players didn’t react to. That says it all. It was a foul but not a yellow card.
He’s been sent-off three times now but he hasn’t been putting in bone crunching tackles, he’s just been unlucky.
With four straight wins, the boys can’t wait until the next game now and there is so much confidence around the place.
We’ve got 12 games left and just need to keep up what we are doing and secure our place in the play-offs.
We’re heading for the nitty gritty stage of the season and there are several teams going through a bit of a sticky patch.
We just need to stay in there and maybe with a few games to go, we can have a look at those top three places and see if we can have a go.
You never know what can happen.
Apparently the lads are all bonding by competing against each other on Call of Duty and it makes a difference from my days when we would all meet down the pub.
And that’s a good thing as we don’t want to see our players out boozing.
When Mark Stimson was here as manager, we all got into Mario Kart on the wii and there was plenty of competition there and lots of banter flying around.
The banter is certainly flying at the moment. The young ones have certainly added a bit of vibrancy to the squad and if social networking and computer games floats their boats and makes them connect, then great.
More by this author
Alex Hoad