Striker Kris Dennis took his tally to ten for the season so far on Saturday afternoon with a clinical finish that was matched by an equally clinical spot kick with the first goal also sparking the – is that the fastest goal we’ve ever scored debate – almost as soon as it crossed the line.
His yield has come from just 17 games with him showing his knack of being in the right place at the right time with a range of different types of finishes that have made him one of the division’s hot properties.
Saturday’s 39th second opener set the tone for an excellent overall team display, but he admitted afterwards that he wasn’t entirely convinced that he was going to get himself on the end of it after Jack Stretton had whipped it into the mix on the volley.
“To be honest, I didn’t think I was going to reach it,” he revealed. “I thought to myself that I’d just dive and see if I could get there.
“It actually fell perfectly for me and luckily it went in. How long was it - 39 seconds - that’s some start that!”
The not long into the second period came a foul on strike partner Stretton, followed by the shortest debate ever about who was going to take the resulting spot kick.
“He [Jack] did ask me as I walked over to the ball but then he looked at me and said - I don’t even know why I asked you that,” he revealed. “I wasn’t going to give it away, no chance.
“It gave us the two-goal cushion and I think we were even more in control then. The stutter in the run-up, I’ve done it plenty of times. Sometimes I do it, sometimes I don’t.
“I’ve had a few penalties where I’ve done that, and I was actually debating going down the middle. I looked at the ball, but I was keeping my eye on the keeper a little bit.
“I saw him lean to go for it and I thought, yeah, happy days. I knew I could place it and we’d be two goals up.”
Hitting double figures at such an early stage of the season is something else that all strikers dream about.
“I’d have snapped your hand off if you’d offered me that at the start of the season,” he told us. “I’ve just got to keep going and if I’m scoring, and hopefully other people chip in, it’ll mean we’re winning.
“As long as we’re winning that’s all that matters. We all want to have something to play for towards the end of the season.”
The commanding and ruthless performance came off the back of a Tuesday night away day that had left everybody feeling shocked and knowing that much better was to come.
“It was massive for us to do something like this,” he commented. “To come to a place like this, to a team that’s in and around us in the table, it’s important to perform.
“The results we’ve had recently, we probably deserved what we got on Tuesday. On Saturday, I don’t really want to say too much about that because we know we deserved more. So to come here and get a result is brilliant.
“Literally, everyone to a man was brilliant. That’s what you need because everyone knew what had gone wrong on Tuesday. Hopefully this has shown that it was just a little blip.
“We got back to our normal form in the league and hopefully that continues. We were talking abut that at half time.
“We said that everybody had to keep the same intensity and we knew that if we could nick the next goal it would give us a bit of a cushion. Luckily Strets won us the penalty and it was a case of seeing it out from there.”
Team spirit is always a factor when looking at a successful team, and it was demonstrated once again that this group has that in abundance.
“There’s so much of that in there,” he confirmed. “There’s nobody who isn’t part of it, everybody just really gets on.
“It’s brilliant to come into work to it every day and we’ve just got to make sure we keep it up. I don’t even think confidence was an issue at Stockport.
“We just had an off day. It doesn’t matter who you play in this league, if you have an off day you’re likely to lose. Luckily everyone was back at it and we got the result to go with it.
“On a personal level I don’t think I can say I’ve been at it in the last couple of games, but to get a goal after 30-odd seconds is brilliant and, like I say, I’ve literally just got to keep going. We all just want to keep getting the results.
“It’s one thing being where we are in the table now but we need to be there when we’re looking towards the end of the season. If we keep putting in performances like this, we shouldn’t be far off.”
The twelfth man (all 905 of them) on Saturday played their part (as usual), with the celebrations lasting through the 90 minutes and beyond.
“It’s brilliant celebrating with them like that,” he said. “They never shut up all game and I think the goal early doors helped us all. It quietened the home fans down as well.
“Everywhere we go they travel in big numbers and if you don’t feed off that there’s something wrong with you. We just want to keep saying thank you to them by getting results.
“We’re at home next weekend, and it is a little bit weird to playing the same team, but I haven’t really thought about that yet.
“I would guess that both teams will make changes and fingers crossed it’s us in the draw for the next round.
“Hopefully it’s another big crowd and they get behind us again, because it makes such a massive difference. They’re brilliant and we want to do it for them again.”
