Iron defender Niall Canavan was delighted to see his side keep a clean sheet in Tuesday’s 2-0 win at home to Chesterfield and hopes the team can keep their recent form up.
The victory against the Spireites was the Iron’s second in as many matches and Canavan started the scoring against the play-off chasers, heading in Liam O’Neil’s corner.That meant that it was two in two for the Iron defender, who was also on target in Saturday’s 3-1 win against Swindon Town.
The performance was the most pleasing aspect for Canavan though as United moved up to 14th place and just five points off the play-off places.
Canavan told The Iron Player: “It was another good performance from the lads in the second half. I thought the first half was a way of us feeling our way into the game.
“I thought we latched on to them a lot better in the second half to break up their play and exposed some spaces that we could find.
“The gaffer told us just to be a bit braver. We needed to get in amongst them a bit more and trust each other with the ball and take our game to them.”
Neither side had been able to break the deadlock in the first half, but once again the Iron produced an impressive second half performance to win the points.
Canavan was delighted to have netted in back to back games and was hopeful about continuing his own run in front of goal.
He said: “I think it’s the first time I’ve done it in my career, but it’s nice to do and if I’m up there I will always back myself to score and get another one.
“They made a sub just as we were about to take a corner and the fella who was picking me up went off. Similarly enough, the same thing happened on Saturday.
“They changed the man who was marking me and I managed to score. Paddy said he was going to go across the front so I was hanging around the back and it managed to fall through to me.”
The Iron defender was also delighted that the side were able to keep a clean sheet against the Spireites, United's first since October’s clash at Gillingham and second of the season.
Canavan said: “Yeah we’ve not done it in a long time and the gaffer’s been saying for a long time that we need one and us as players have wanted one and not been able to achieve one.
“I thought we managed the latter part of the game well and we were quite comfortable in seeing it out.”
Confidence is high in the squad and the players will be hoping to carry on the form that they have shown in the past few games into Saturday’s clash with Preston.
The play-offs are still the target for Mark Robins’ side, with the Iron averaging just under two points per game since his arrival in October.
Canavan was hopeful of his side’s chances and hoped that they could make use of their games in hand to put together a good run.
He said: “I think in the league everyone is looking to do that. It is tight, but while we’ve got the games in hand we can look at making a surge.
“Tonight’s given us a good chance to do that and thankfully we’ve taken the three points and managed to do that. Hopefully we can keep that going in the coming matches.”
See much more from Niall Canavan, Luke Daniels and Mark Robins on The Iron Player.