Dan Maguire carries himself as a young player with a great deal of confidence. And why wouldn’t he? The Blyth Spartans striker blasted a hat-trick in Tuesday night’s win at Trafford and that meant he became the first Spartan since Paul Brayson to hit thirty goals in a season.
The former Newcastle United youngster hit that landmark in 2009/10 and it has been a remarkable run of thirteen goals in fourteen games that has seen Maguire replicate the achievement of a player who is still prolific in the Northern League.
But as Croft Park’s new striking hero prepares for the vital season ending fixture against Marine he insisted that he isn’t the only man in green and white showing signs of confidence.
“The dressing room is buzzing and we are all looking forward to Satuday. It won’t be easy but we are on a great run of form, we are massively confident and we are ready to do whatever we have to do to get the points we need to give us a chance of getting in those play-offs”
Maguire also admitted that it was imperative that his side focuses on their result and don’t get carried away with events in Cheshire and Yorkshire. Spartans need to better Ilkeston’s result at Nantwich Town to ensure a play-off spot is theirs and could even sneak into fourth place should Curzon Ashton lose against Yorkshire outfit Frickley Athletic.
Maguire though, will focus solely on events under his control at Croft Park.
“We know we need other results to go our way and we need favours from other clubs. But we can’t take our focus off Marine because they need the win just as much as we do, if we don’t focus they will punish us because they are in a false position in this league.
We will focus on them and whatever happens elsewhere happens. We can’t control that so we just try our best to get the result we need and hope things elsewhere go our way”
And what of that thirty goal mark? Maguire rather underplayed the achievement saying he was “happy” to have reached such a landmark but insisted that the team has to come first on Saturday.
“It’s nice to reach thirty and I am happy that I have done it but for now we just have to focus on Saturday and getting what we need, simple as that really”