Gillingham midfielder Mark Bentley writes exclusively for the KM Group
08:00, 14 January 2011
Adebayo Akinfenwa in action against his former team Northampton in October
We’re hoping we can take our fine form into the game against Northampton.
The win at Stockport has made it tight around the top half of the table and third place doesn’t seem that far off now.
We’ll continue to take it a game at a time. We were disappointing when we played Northampton earlier in the season but that was then and the new belief in this team will hopefully see us come through with a good result.
Last weekend’s win at Stockport was not a bad way of showing everybody how well we responded after the defeat against Wycombe.
It was a great all-round team performance and with the chances we had, the result could have been even more emphatic.
We will settle for ‘just’ five goals, though, and a highest away victory since 1999.
It’s a nice feeling setting new records in a positive way for the club as there has been too much negativity around the past year or so.
The game saw Cody scoring his first professional hat-trick so I’m sure walking off with the match ball would have been a proud moment for him.
His comments after the game were in true striker fashion, though, saying that he should have scored six.
He was disappointed after the Stevenage game, where he felt he missed some good chances but he works hard for the team and like all good strikers, he has the knack of getting himself in the right position at the right time.
The team shape changed a little, with Bayo failing to recover from a groin problem while Joe Martin had a hamstring injury.
It meant Cody playing up-front on his own but Curtis and Barchy supported him well and both chipped in with goals.
Danny Jackman came back into the side and did well considering he has not played much in recent months.
Our all-round play was far too much for a Stockport side, who a bit like ourselves a couple of months ago, looked low on confidence.