Luke at the Positives

ARGYLE goalkeeper Luke McCormick shared his optimistic outlook on the rest of the season ahead of Saturday’s game at Cambridge United...

...and following a surreal experience last weekend.

The 32 year old stopper is looking to win his third promotion with the Pilgrims, having been part of the 2001-02 and 2003-04 winning sides as well as this year’s efforts.

Last Saturday’s 3-2 home reverse against Dagenham & Redbridge certainly made automatic promotion a harder task but McCormick reflected positively on the loss.

He said: “Saturday wasn’t part of the script for whatever reason and it’s one of the strangest games I’ve ever been a part of. We’ve come away disappointed and hurt - and no doubt that’s exactly how the supporters felt afterwards. We are disappointed in the sense we felt like we probably could have secured automatic promotion by this point but it’s not be to be.

“You can’t look back and bury your heads in the sand and dwell on it, you’ve got to look forward because who knows what will happen over these last two weeks. We learn from the loss and we try and change our focus from last Saturday to this one. We’ve worked too hard and too long for our heads to be anything other than up.”

Argyle travel to the Abbey Stadium in fifth position, three points short of the automatic promotion positions with just two games to play. McCormick certainly doesn’t think a top three finish is out of the question for the Pilgrims, though. 

“Who’s to say there’s not another twist in the story?" said Luke. "We have six massive points to play for and ideally we want to go into the last game of the season with a chance. We saw it can happen last year with Bury, who snuck in on that last day. We’re still in the hunt and three points this Saturday will hopefully send us to into Hartlepool with a shot at it.”

Cambridge will enter Saturday in good form, having hammered Morecambe 7-0 in their last home game, followed by a 2-1 victory at Notts County. Portsmouth’s midweek victory at Wimbledon also ensures the U’s still have a slim chance of making the playoffs, but Luke thinks will actually benefit the Pilgrims, as they may be able to captilise on the gaps left by a Cambridge outfit that will have to attack. 

McCormick said: “I think it suits us that they have something to play for. We saw what happened when Dagenham came here, already relegated, playing with no pressure and with a freedom. Cambridge will have to come at us at a little bit. We can hopefully have a really good game against them and they’ll be confident on the back of a great result scoring a lot of goals against Morecambe.”

Argyle have to rely on other teams slipping up if they are to get promoted automatically but McCormick echoed manager Derek Adams’ view that the Pilgrims need to focus on their own performance first and foremost.

Luke said: “We’ll go to the next two games and try and take maximum points and see what happens with the teams that are sat above us now. We have to wait and see but all we can do is look after ourselves. We’ve got a fantastic opportunity and despite a bit of bad home form of late it’s not all doom and gloom. We're still in a great position to make this season a positive one.”