Greg Cundle stepped off the bench and into the fray yesterday to fire home his 10th goal of the season. And as he reached double figures for 2022/23, his desire for more will be music to Fleet fans’ ears.
“This is definitely my best return,” said the striker-turned-winger, who has already doubled his total from last season. “We’ve still got 12 games to go as well so I’d like to get a few more by the end of this season and we’ll see how things go. It was a good feeling, it’s been a while and I’m really happy with that.”
He wasn’t the only happy one as he charged towards the travelling fans with the ball at his toes, seeing off the desperate covering runs of Clarets defenders, before stabbing a shot the wrong side of Eddie Beach.
“It was good to get into the action straight away after I came on,” said Cundle. “I had a few nice passes and we were linking up nicely, then I got the yellow card! Then for the goal, when it came to me I just had one thing on my mind and that was to get through and score.
“The goal just opened up, I had a few options either side, I think Toby Edser was making a run and he dragged the defender out with him and then it was just waiting for the moment to shoot.”
That goal ensured another three points for the Fleet who are now unbeaten in 12 games, 11 of those wins. It opened up a 13-point gap over Dartford and 20 ahead of Havant & Waterlooville.
“We can all definitely feel something building,” said the former Gillingham man. “You can feel it with the fans, their excitement, they’ve been superb and the last few games we’ve all stepped up. As a team we’ve stepped it up too and the fans have really helped us with that in some tough away games.”
With the season entering its critical phase, Cundle and his teammates cannot but be aware of the demand for maximum points each game – yesterday’s close affair at Chelmsford was no different but the Fleet squad are proving equal to the task.
“It was important to dig in and we went at them for 20 minutes but they came back into it a little bit,” said Cundle of the visit to the Melbourne Stadium. “They made it hard for us and coming here we always knew there was going to be maybe just the one goal in it so it was important when the chance came to take it.
“The pitch today was alright and we’d expected the worst. It played well, better certainly than the last couple of games and these pitches will start to play a bit better now going into March until the end of the season for us.
“We expect to win every game so it’s not really added pressure at this time of the season where you really do have to try and do that and it’s almost expected of you. But the travelling, coming to grounds where it can be tough to earn points, you’ve got to be switched on. We’ve done it with our last two away, we’ve one more and then back home so the plan is another win like that on Tuesday and that sets us up for next week and next month.”
