Striker Danny Rose says being in the play-off mix is ‘why you want to be a professional footballer’.
The former Bury frontman scored twice in today’s 3-1 win against Morecambe as the Stags closed the gap on the Sky Bet League Two play-offs to just one point.
And Rose is looking forward to what he describes as a string of ‘cup finals’ in the remaining few weeks of the season after today’s victory kept Stags in the play-off hunt.
“We’ve got big games coming up but this is what you live for, big games like this, this is why you want to be a professional footballer. Starting next week, we’ve got six cup finals now," Rose said.
“It’s a cliché in football but they’re all tough, they’re all up there, they’re all in the play-offs and we’ve got six cup finals now. We’ll go in to next week full of confidence.”
The 23-year-old believes Stags have now got to remain focussed and ‘stick to the task in hand’ to continue their play-off search.
“Ever since the gaffer’s come in we’ve been playing catch-up but now we’re up there and we’ve got to stick to the task in hand and get in to the play-offs.
“We stuck at our task and we had a game plan before the game and we’ve come away with three points.
“We’ve had a good three months since the turn of the year that’s put us right in there. Credit to the lads, credit to all of us really; we’ve stuck to the task and we should hopefully we up there.”
Today’s brace saw Rose move on to eight goals for the season and the striker is aiming to end the campaign in double figures.
“A couple of weeks ago I said to you that 10 was the aim and hopefully I can get a couple more between now and the end of the season.
“We’re full of confidence, despite us not scoring away from home against Cheltenham and Yeovil, but we’ve shown today that we can score goals away from home.”
The Barnsley-born forward says Stags will make sure their recovery is right ahead of next week’s big match against fellow promotion hopefuls Exeter City.
“We’ll recover right, because we’ve got a week now until Exeter, we’ll train again on Monday and we’ll just keep doing what we’re doing in training and take it into Saturday.
“We’ve got a big game now next week against Exeter and we’ll move on to that, so it’s a really big game. It’s going to put us right in there if we can get the three points.”
Supporters can login to Stags PlayerHD to view Danny Rose’s post-match interview.
