The midweek victory over Barnsley has to be the catalyst for a storming end to the season according to Stevenage skipper Carl Piergianni - and he fully believes they can put pressure on their League One play-off rivals.

Boro had gone eight games without winning prior to the 2-1 success over the South Yorkshire side, a run of five draws and three defeats that had sent them spiralling out of the top six.

But even though there was the natural human response of disappointment at the results, the big centre-half never doubted the ability in the squad.

He said: "That win has been a long time coming but we put in a great performance and really deserved it. 

"We're back to showing how capable we are beating the team that has cemented itself in the playoffs. 

"There were some really good individual performances for our players and it has made a huge difference.

"But we always had that belief. Obviously we were flat [after the 1-0 loss at Exeter on Saturday] and the long journey back, it was a tough one to take, but there are still a lot of points to play for. 

"We had to go out there [against Barnsley] and get the win and we're looking now to see if we can get three more wins and see where that takes us because you don't know what could happen. 

"The league this year has proven that anyone can beat anyone else and teams find it hard to get wins on occasions. 

"If we can look after ourselves and go and play like we did Tuesday night and get three more points on Saturday, we can take it to the last two weeks of the season and put some real pressure on teams around us. 

"That's exactly what we'd like to do." 

He also reflected on the journey since he arrived at the club in the summer of 2022, praising it but also quick to admonish any thoughts that they will settle for what they've got.

"It's been a brilliant transformation, there's no getting away from that," said Piergianni. "We were at the bottom end of League Two and we’re now fighting for the play-offs in League One, and kind of expecting to get in them a few weeks ago. 

"That is a great achievement but we don’t want to dwell on that or look at how far we’ve come. 

"We believe we are where we are because we deserve to be and we believe we're capable of getting in the play-offs. 

"We've just got to try and look after ourselves. 

"Everyone's going to be up for it on Saturday. We certainly are, I know the fans are and we’re going to pack out the Lamex and it is going to be an unbelievable atmosphere. 

"Everyone’s looking forward to it." 

Burton Albion are the team standing in their way on Saturday, a side sitting just outside of the bottom four on goal difference.

And the Boro skipper knows that they could be a dangerous and wounded animal.

"They'll be fighting," he said. "They've had some bad results in recent weeks, but they're fighting for their own cause and they'll be giving everything they can to try and stop what we're doing and trying to get three points for themselves and get themselves out of danger.  

"It's by no means going to be easy at all and we know from previous weeks that no game in this league is easy. 

"But we've also shown over the course of the season that we're able to put three and four wins together on the bounce. 

"If we can find that bit of form now and take it to the end of the season, hopefully we'll be good."