Andy Smith was proud of everybody involved with Gillingham's 2-1 win at Shrewsbury Town on Saturday.
The central defender credited the clinical nature the side showed, and was delighted with everybody's defensive efforts, as they put their bodies on the line to ensure three points.
Smith scored the winning goal, as he found himself inside the six-yard box after Bradley Dack's deflected shot struck the crossbar, and he was on hand to prod the ball into the back of the net.
The Gills did well to limit Shrewsbury's attacking threats throughout the game, which Smith admits they had worked on during the week. However, he reiterated the importance of the team focusing on themselves.
On the victory...
I am really proud of everyone today. It wasn't our best performance in terms of playing football and creating chances; however, when the chances came, we were clinical. Defensively, not just the defenders or the back five, it was a real team performance. Lads throwing themselves in front of the ball at the end. It was brilliant.
As a collective, the fight, the determination and the resilience that we showed today has got to be the minimum.
On scoring the winning goal...
I don't know what I was doing up there, to be honest. I decided to get giddy and join in! Obviously, Dacky [Bradley Dack] has had the shot that deflected and hit the bar, and fortunately, I was in the right place at the right time and managed to get it in. I am really happy.
To come here, get three points and come away with the winner; it is special.
Dealing with Shrewsbury's attacking threat...
We know how good Lloydy [George Lloyd] is; I played with him previously, and their other striker [Josh Davison]. We knew that they were a physical threat with lots of energy and speed, so we had our things that we tried to work on in the week to try and stop that. Thankfully, today we did.
I think that every player in the league, on their day, can be a threat to anyone, so whoever it is that we're up against, we try and do our work in the week to nullify threats. More importantly, we focus on ourselves a lot here as well. How we can hurt teams.
I think that you can get caught up in thinking about the opposition and opposition players, but we really try to work on ourselves and how we can implement our game on others.
