Hippy Shakers

Joyous as the 3-1 victory over Exeter at St James Park was, Pilgrims manager John Sheridan has made sure his squad’s collective mind was smartly refocused on maintaining their currently four-game winning streak when Bury come to town on Saturday.

Peter Hartley enjoyed the celebrations following the magical 90 minutes up the road as much as anyone, although he will have less trouble than his team-mates in putting the memories to bed because of an old injury that flared up before kick-of.  

“We beat them; we did the double over them; we gave our fans the bragging rights – what more can we do?” he said. “I’m sure, if we get a result this Saturday, it will be even better. We have just got to keep that momentum going. 

“It was a massive game; a massive win. Reuben’s three goals was unbelievable – he is going to go down in history for that.

“But I can’t really remember much of the game because I felt my hip in warm-up and had a few painkillers before the game. I was fine, but when I was sat on the coach after, and actually thought about the game, I thought ‘I’ve just missed a derby’ because I couldn’t remember much of it.”

The hip will not prevent the Argyle vice-captain from being in the shake-up for Saturday’s game against a team immediately below the sixth-placed Pilgrims in Sky Bet League 2, behind them only on goal-difference.

“It’s not really going to improve but I’ve had it since October,” he said. “It’s fine. I feel good. Sometimes, I need a few painkillers; sometimes I get through [the game] and don’t feel it.

“It’s a massive game – a six-pointer – and we owe them because they beat us 2-1 at their place. We know what we need to do; we’ve worked on it this week. We know how they play and what they intend to do but, if we do what we do and we concentrate on what we are going to do to teams, I don’t think we’ll have a problem.”