Toolstation NCEL Division One
Mick O’Connell is urging Harrogate Railway to hold their nerve as the race for the play-offs heads into the final furlong.
Railway are fourth and have a five point buffer on fifth-placed Rossington Main and O’Connell says his men are in control of their own destiny.
“We are where we set out to be,” O’Connell told Non League Yorkshire.
“We are probably a bit further forward than we thought we would be.
“As we have stated from day one we want to be in the play-offs and it is in our hands.
“I think if we win another seven out of the ten games we’ll be guaranteed a play-offs spot.
“Can we hunt Brigg down and finish third? That’s highly unlikely because if they win their game-in-hand they’ll go eight points clear of us.
“Although we have to play them I can’t see them dropping five or eight points with the run of form they are in.
“We’ll try and hang onto that fourth spot and try and churn out results.
“I spoke to the lads on Tuesday night and I said to the lads that we don’t need to concentrate on what other people doing and just worry about ourselves and keep our feet on the ground and keep working hard.
“We just need to keep doing what we have been doing all year.”
Ahead of the home clash with basement side Teversal, O’Connell feels Railway are close to shutting down the chances of teams from eighth downwards from catching them.
“Rossington have two games-in-hand but they are against Brigg and Selby so they’ll be tough games for them,” he said.
“We still have (seventh-placed) Retford to play at home.
“They have gone flaky in recent weeks, they’ll win one and lose one.
“We need to concentrate on ourselves.
“After the Hallam game we said we need to go five or six unbeaten and if we can do that we’ll see off teams from sixth to tenth.
“Teams who did have glimmer of hope a few weeks ago like Hall Road, Parkgate’s, Armthorpe’s, teams like that, I think if we can get two more wins on the board I think it will be guaranteed that we have batted them off.
“We need to be consistent for a few weeks.
“We have a run of games where we’re targeting maximum points.
“Our target for this season is 80 points and we have got 30 points still to play for and we’re on 60 points.
“Another 20 points is not unachievable.”
The latest victory was the 3-0 success at Clipstone – a win kick-started by the quality finish from Mike Morris.
“The conditions were absolutely dreadful and it was blowing an absolute gale and it was hard conditions to play football in,” O’Connell added.
“In the first half we completely dominated the ball and probably could have scored a couple more.
“If anything we were a little sloppy in the final third.
“Overall on reflection to play in those conditions and to go away from home and score three and keep a clean sheet was pleasing.
“I don’t think they had a shot at us as well so it tells its own story.”