Mansfield Town

Defender determined to cement a starting place over the festive period.

Having featured in our last two games, centre-back Luke Waterfall is hoping to establish himself as a regular in our team before his loan with us expires early in the New Year.

The 24-year-old, who joined us from Scunthorpe United six weeks ago, has partnered Ryan Tafazolli in the heart of our defence recently, and will be hoping to keep his shirt for Saturday’s trip to AFC Wimbledon.

“I’ve had to wait for my chance, but fortunately for me ‘Riles’ (Martin Riley) got a niggly injury and I’ve got my chance that way,” said the centre-back.

“I just hope I can stay in the team as long as possible. My loan is up on January 1st so I want to stay in the team for as long as I can, do as well as I can and we’ll take things from there.

“When you’re a centre-half if the team are doing well it’s difficult to get a game as managers like to try and keep the back four a steady unit.”

He continued: “The new gaffer (Adam Murray) is obviously trying to change the style over time and get us passing a little bit more, but I think I’m more than capable of doing that.”

The defender thought he had scored a dramatic late equaliser in Tuesday’s FA Cup second round replay with Cambridge United, but his acrobatic effort was controversially ruled out for offside.

“I’ve heard a few different stories,” said Waterfall. “I didn’t think I was offside at first, but I’ve heard people say that I was offside. Apparently the ‘keeper was in front of me and there was only one person playing me onside – I’m not too sure myself to be honest.

“It’s a shame that it got ruled out, because I think if we’d have managed to get into extra-time, I’d have fancied us to go on and win the game.”

He added: “We had a lot of chances to be fair. We weren’t good in the first half and the gaffer obviously told us that at half-time and gave us a bit of a kick up the backside.

“We went out and I thought we did pretty well in the second half. We created a lot of chances and it’s a shame that we didn’t manage to nick a good result.”

Looking ahead to Saturday’s game at the Cherry Red Records Stadium, Waterfall said: “Obviously it’d have been nice to get through to the next round in the FA Cup, but the league has got to be the priority – especially now as we’ve got to start picking up points quickly to get further up the league, which is where we want to be.

“It’ll be a tough game on Saturday, but there are no easy games in this league.”

Luke Waterfall's full interview will be available on Stags Player later today. To subscribe, click here.