Good Day. Good Night

PETER Hartley made sure his Saturday night was one to be enjoyed...

...after he scored a goal and contributed to a clean sheet in the Pilgrims’ 3-0 Sky Bet League 2 win over Cheltenham Town in the.

Argyle made it nine shut-outs from 15 league games and the central defender grabbed their second goal of the afternoon after Reuben Reid opened the scoring, with Lewis Alessandra wrapping things up in the second half.

“If you keep a clean sheet, you can sit and enjoy your meal on a Saturday night,” the Argyle vice-captain said. “Keeping the back door shut as a defender, your job is done. If it’s 3-1, you have the three points but there’s that little burden in the back of your mind.”

Peter nodded home in first-half stoppage-time from home debutant Andy Kellett’s crisp delivery and he believes that the timing of the goal was a weight off the squad’s shoulders.

Argyle have recorded four 1-0 wins so far this season and his goal – his second of the season – allowed the Greens to play with relative ease.

“It was great timing to score the second goal,” Peter said. “It takes a bit of pressure off of you going into half-time; it’s not a nice scoreline to go in at 1-0.

“What we struggled with the first couple of weeks is, when we’ve gone 1-0 up, we sort of sat off and want to defend our lead. But I think, today, we showed a bit of hunger to go and get another goal, and it was pleasing in the dressing-room after that we had done that.”

Cheltenham had won their previous two fixtures prior to their visit to Home Park, but were restricted to very few chances, and Peter admitted that Argyle thought they would have a tougher test.

He said: “Cheltenham are in good form of late so we knew we had to come out of the blocks quick, because they’re no pushovers and they’re a decent team. We expected them to start a lot better than they did.

“I thought they were petrified of Lewi and Reubs today in the first half and they showed them too much respect, which has to be earned.

“We won’t be showing any strikers the respect that they gave them today. Teams are coming down here and trying to second guess what we’re going to do.”