Gary Meakin wants Wingate & Finchley to try and focus on their own results and not be distracted by what the teams around them are doing. The 2-0 win at Hendon was made all the sweeter by the fact that relegation rivals Cray Wanderers, Harrow Borough, Hastings United, Lewes and Thurrock all failed to pick up any points. Those results saw Wingate move up to 16th in the table, six points clear of the U’s in 21st but Meakin admitted that with the teams around them having so many games in hand, it was a false position and the Blues need to keep their attention on picking up the points in their remaining five fixtures: “Looking at the table and seeing us in 16th was nice but come the end of the season I’ll take 20th, I’m not going to be greedy. Obviously it’s hard to avoid having half an eye on the other sides because they do have a lot of games in hand but if we win our games and concentrate on us then hopefully we won’t have to worry about them. Cray’s 2-0 win at Bury Town last night saw them move ahead of Wingate into 16th and Blues’ supporters will no doubt be keeping tabs on the clash between promotion chasing Lowestoft Town and Thurrock tonight. “Obviously we need them all to keep dropping points but we can’t be just looking for other teams to do us a favour, we have to do our bit too,” the manager added. “It’s easy to forget about Carshalton too, they’ve got six [points] from nine, they are fighting for it as well. We would be foolish to overlook them but as I said as long as we keep doing our bit I think we’ll be okay.” Turning his attention back to Monday’s 2-0 win, Meakin stated: “I’m really pleased. More so with the result than the performance, when I say performance I mean as a spectacle of football. We did the ugly bit right which is what we needed to do with the conditions, the pitch was bobbly and the wind spoilt the game as well. I told them before the game and reiterated at half-time, it’s back to basics with your headers and tackles and put the ball in the right area and I felt we did that. The first half wasn’t great but the second half was a lot better. After a disappointing showing in his first game back for the club against Wealdstone, Leon Smith was an impressive second-half substitute and Meakin was keen to acknowledge the contribution of both the goal scorers and defender Ryan Scott: “I was really pleased with Leon, he has been away twice and come back and this time he looks hungry and that he wants to do well for himself and well for the club. That’s the best half an hour I have seen of him, we all saw the old Leon there, he really wants to do well and he looked confident and it was good to see him on the scoresheet. “That said, it is easy for all the credit to go to a forward player or someone like that, the one that scores. Hector [Mackie] played really well too but sometimes it’s about the unsung heroes and that is what Ryan Scott was for me. He kept us in the game, he allowed us to go and win it and you have to acknowledge that contribution too, he was excellent.”
Ryan Scott has urged Wingate & Finchley to build on their impressive results over the Easter weekend and believes that the team can take six points from their next two league fixtures. Scott put in a Man of the Match performance in the 2-0 victory against Hendon and the centre-back said after the game: “It’s a good win and a good result. We built on the Wealdstone result on Saturday, four points from two difficult games is great. Obviously their [Hendon] season is pretty much over but we did just what we needed to do here and we need to keep going from now, keep focused and do that until the end of the season. In fact it was a good day all round. The way the other results went was pretty much ideal so we just have to keep building now and concentrate on winning the next game at Leiston and the one after that.” The result was Wingate’s first three points since their dramatic 4-3 victory at Cray and also their first clean sheet in the league since the 1-0 win against Margate back at the beginning of February, something which Scott was especially pleased about: “Obviously that’s my job, first and foremost to keep the goals out so I’m really happy with that but it was all the boys not just me, the whole team performance was good. It was my sort of game, a bit of grit and I’m pleased.” After getting his chance in the same fixture in the London Senior Cup, Scott has played in the club’s last three league games and Gary Meakin singled the defender out for praise, describing him as the ‘team’s unsung hero’. “It’s always good to get praise from the manager,” the defender added. “In fact before the game I wasn’t feeling too great, I was never going to not play but I wasn’t really feeling one hundred percent. “I joined in February but I haven’t been playing, I haven’t really played all season. I’ve got my opportunity from having a few of the boys suspended but to be honest I’d rather have them in the team and know I’ve got my opportunity on merit. But it has worked out quite nicely for me and now I’ve been given my chance, hopefully I can just keep showing what I can do.”