Mansfield Town match-winner Pat Hoban says it’s important to take each game as it comes after his brace sent Stags sailing through to the quarter finals of the Checkatrade Trophy.
The Irishman scored two headers in the space of seven second-half minutes to ensure Stags defeated their League One counterparts Oldham Athletic.
And the former Oxford United frontman says he's focussed on taking each game one at a time and will not get distracted by the allure of Wembley.
“It’s an old cliché but you have to take each game as it comes. I’m looking forward to the next round and seeing where it takes us,” Hoban said.
“I was there (at Wembley) twice last year with Grimsby and it’s a great occasion. Everyone will want to get there and I’d be lying if I said the lads didn’t want to get to Wembley. It’d be a great occasion but there’s still two games to go.”
After seeing his chances on the pitch limited in recent weeks, the 25-year-old was pleased to grab a brace on his return to the starting XI.
“It was great to get two goals, of course, but it was just good to get through a game like that.
“It’s good to get a run-out in the side again. There’s a lot of competition in there now, which is a good thing, so it keeps striving us on and making us better.
“[Competition] is what you want. There’s no point having no competition because you don’t get promoted or you don’t win things with that. It’s always good to have healthy competition.”
Hoban says his team-mates’ determination to keep fighting until the end typifies the mindset which manager Steve Evans is trying to instil in the players.
“We just kept going until the bitter end and I think that’s what the gaffer and Rayns (Paul Raynor) have been drilling into us: keep going, keep going, keep going! I think that just came into play today.
“It was a hard-fought performance and, especially defensively, I thought we [were] excellent.
“We’ve got three clean sheets now in a row and we want to keep that going into Saturday.
“With the gaffer adding quality into the squad, it definitely helps. All we can do is keep going forward and three wins on the bounce with clean sheets says where it’s at.”
Supporters can log in to Stags PlayerHD to view Pat Hoban’s post-match interview.
