Gillingham manager Stephen Clemence was delighted as his side returned to winning ways following a nervy 3-2 win away at fellow play-off chasers Morecambe.
Jordan Slew opened the scoring for the Shrimps with Ollie Hawkins equalising for the Gills, before Charlie Brown restored the seaside club’s lead.
It remained that way until 17 minutes from the end when Clemence’s side showed character and fight to come from behind and win the game through late goals from Timothee Dieng and Connor Mahoney.
The eighth-placed side have struggled for form lately, not winning in their last four before yesterday’s result. That run saw them drop out of the play-off places but after yesterday’s result, they now sit in eighth position, level on points with seventh-placed Crawley Town.
A delighted Clemence told Kent Online:
“I am pleased, whenever you win you are pleased aren’t you?
“We had four bad games before this where I still think we could have picked up more points.
“I didn’t think it was the end of the world, of course, I wanted to get more points than we had, but we have to not get too high and not get too low at times. Hopefully, this settles people down again.
“We went to Barrow and we weren’t good enough, then we had two home games where I felt we should have won both but we came away with two draws. At Wimbledon we had a man sent off after 24 minutes or something, it felt early and it’s difficult, seventh vs eighth and you are down to 10 men.
“We could have been a bit more fortunate recently but the lads haven’t done too bad.”
Over the Easter weekend, Gillingham face a potentially season defining double-header as they come up against fifth-placed Crewe Alexandra and Harrogate Town, who themselves are only five points off the top seven.
The Gills then face two more tough games against play-off side Barrow and league leaders Mansfield Town before the end of the season with just six games remaining for the Kent-based side.
Writer’s View
The League Two play-off fight is mesmerising and is one of the closest for several seasons, with six teams within five points off Crawley. All teams seem to have a ‘blip’ along the way and it would seem the Gills have now had theirs.
It would be a brave move to write them off and there are sure to be more twist and turns before the end of the season. With an average age of 29.3, the Gills are an experienced side, which in itself could stand them in good stead for the end-of-season lottery.
