Iron skipper Rory McArdle received the perfect birthday present on Tuesday as the side’s play-off place was confirmed.
With one game of the regular season remaining, the central defender is focused on continuing the momentum that the side has built over the past group of games when he faces his former side Bradford City on Saturday evening.
ON A PERFECT BIRTHDAY PRESENT…
RM: I tried to not tell too many people about it. We all just wanted to concentrate on the game and we all knew the magnitude. If you had offered me a birthday present on Tuesday, that would have been it. Credit to the lads, everyone chipped in and played their part to get me the present that I wanted.
ON PREPARING FOR BRADFORD CITY…
RM: We have to approach it in exactly the same way. Whenever there’s a game of football, everyone wants to win. We’re on a good run, we want to keep that momentum going and we want that to carry on on Saturday. We will prepare in the right way and approach it to try and win the game.
ON THE RUN OF CLEAN SHEETS…
RM: We showed at the start of the season how important the clean sheets are. Once we got one, we didn’t sit on it, we wanted to build on it and that’s what we’ve done. The timing of it has been good as well. We want to keep that going, but equally we don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves, because it can change.
ON FACING HIS FORMER SIDE…
RM: It will be good. It’s the last game of the regular season as well and when the fixtures came out, everyone looked at the game and thought it would have a bit more on it than it has turned out to have. I was there for five years and I was fortunate that, while I was there, we had a lot of successful times.
ON THE SQUAD HAVING PLAY-OFF EXPERIENCE…
RM: I think it’s important that we treat it like a normal week. I know it is easier said than done. When we do prepare right and start well in games, we can cause teams a lot of problems. Ask the lads from last year how disappointed they were after the semi-finals, after a long season, and they’ll all want to make this season count. It’s important that players seize the opportunity. We’ve felt the other side of it, and don’t want to be on that side of it.
See much more from Rory McArdle on iFollow Iron. Click here to sign up.