Stevenage matchwinner says hard work saw Boro to victory over Oldham Athletic

MATCH-winner Lawrie Wilson was understandably upbeat following Tuesday night’s last-gasp 1-0 win over Oldham Athletic.

The winger had endured a largely frustrating evening, as did most of his team-mates, playing at right back for over an hour, but he popped up to score a fantastic diving header in stoppage time to secure his team a valuable three points – their first in over 10 hours of football.

It certainly wasn’t a vintage Boro performance by any stretch of the imagination, but the 24-year-old says the result is more important than the performance on the night.

“We didn’t play our best – we’ve had quite a few draws lately so it is great for the lads to get a win,” Wilson told the Comet. “But we’ve not been losing which is the key thing and we always play the way in which we believe and the results will eventually come for us.

“That was obviously the case tonight where we got the win from hard graft. We didn’t play the best but at the end of the day we won and that’s all that counts.”

When asked why the team struggled to pass the ball and keep possession like they did against Tottenham Hotspur the previous week, Wilson said it’s unfair to compare the two games because the conditions and style of the opposition were so different.

“We had a game-plan in the first 15 minutes [against Oldham] and we stuck to that but conditions obviously play a big part in games,” he added. “We’d love to be able to play at White Hart Lane every week on carpets and things like that but it is hard on our pitch. But you have to play the conditions sometimes and today was a hard graft.”

Boro head to Hartlepool United on Saturday hoping for a repeat result of their FA Cup First Round tie back in November when a Scott Laird penalty sealed a 1-0 victory. And Wilson says his team can take confidence from their latest win and continue to mount an assault on the play-offs.

“We’re always confident going into games so we will prepare for that when we come in on Thursday [today]. We’ll take each game as it comes but the aim is to get three points again.”