By David Pritchard
Mark Stimson paid tribute to Simeon Jackson’s professionalism after the striker bounced back from a poor performance to fire Gillingham to a vital victory against Huddersfield Town yesterday (Saturday).
The Canada international made little impact in the 2-0 defeat at Carlisle a week earlier, but responded with two superb finishes as the Gills beat the high-flying Terriers 2-0 at Priestfield.
It took Jackson’s tally for the season to 17 goals and Stimson, the Gills boss, was delighted the striker’s hard work in training had paid off.
He said: “He will admit last week [at Carlisle] he wasn’t good, he was as bad as the other two up front. But in Monday’s fitness work, Tuesday’s fitness work he led from the front. Very, very good professional and he deserved everything he got because his training this week has been absolutely spot on. I’m a great believer that if you put the work in you’ll get the rewards and he certainly did that.
“[The first goal] was a great strike and he got it from some great pressing from Adam Miller. He closed the full-back down got a block and played a great little ball round the corner. Jacko took a good first touch and an even better second touch to put it in the bottom corner.
“But if you watch the second goal I think it’s a better finish. He’s actually run with the ball 10-15 yards at pace, got his head up and put it round the ‘keeper with the outside of his right foot. Two good finishes from him and long may that continue to get him back up those goalscoring charts.”
Stimson also revealed there were doubts over skipper Danny Jackman, who was ill on Friday night but battled through to play 90 minutes. Josh Gowling was not included in the squad after suffering a hamstring strain, although it is not yet known how serious the problem will be.
The victory, only the club’s third in 18 games, lifted them five points clear of the bottom four ahead of next weekend’s trip to rock bottom Stockport County. Stimson was pleased with the hard-fought win against Huddersfield, but cautioned against reading too much into one result.
He said: “It’s a good one because Huddersfield are a good side. They had a horrible result in midweek [losing 5-0 to Southampton] and we knew they were going to come here and try to stop that, so to score two and keep a clean sheet is a big result but it’s only three points. It’s nice but we have to maintain it. Don’t get carried away; the big picture is to stay in this division and the sooner we do that the better.”
POSTED: 07/03/2010 11:51:20
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