Darryn Stamp believes Blues are making strides

Darryn Stamp feels Gainsborough Trinity's expensive bunch of underachievers are finally starting to prove their worth as they eased their relegation fears.

The struggling Blues secured a surprise 3-2 victory against high-flying Alfreton at the weekend as the visitors' crashed to first defeat in the Blue Square North since December.

Luke Beckett, Lewis McMahon and Stamp were Trinity's heroes as they ruined Chris Hall's return to the Northolme following his move to Nicky Law's promotion-chasing outfit.

The result moved the Blues six points clear of the drop zone with the Conference expected to confirm that only two teams will go down in light of Farsley Celtic's financial extinction.

And with Trinity starting to string decent results together, Stamp believes the squad, which is blessed with players full of Football League experience, is starting to get their act together.

"We now feel we are starting to show what we are truly capable of and, I know this may sound daft, but if the season only began a month ago the we would be right up there," he said.

"As I said before, I think the toughness and competitive nature of the division has surprised a lot of the players, who were used to a different kind of mentality in the Football League.

"Every week and every game is a battle, there are no easy games, but we are starting to look a lot more solid now and if we had played this game a few months back, we would have lost 3-1.

"The new signings have helped us immeasurably and now we are keeping it tight, while we look like we are going to score goals, too.

"We've just got to keep working hard and performances like this are only going to help us, in terms of our confidence, although we all realise that we've underachieved this year."