LEE Chappell issued a rousing rallying cry to his Wealdstone team-mates on Monday night ahead of Saturday’s clash with relegation-haunted Aveley.
Listening to the Stones skipper you would have been excused for thinking he was talking about an all-in wrestling bout or a boxing, match rather than a crunch game in his side’s late play-off bid.
But it was the heart-on-sleeve skipper’s way of stressing that despite being on a run of 10 games without defeat, nothing less than six points would do from the trip to Essex and next weekend’s clash with struggling Folkestone.
He said: "If we are looking to be in the play-offs we have to beat both of them - there can be no excuses.
"They are not doing the best at the minute, but we can’t just turn up and think we are going to win.
"We have got to impose ourselves on sides like that. We have to batter them and make them not want to come out for the second half.
"We have to make them want to go home early, so we’ll be pressing and looking to score as many goals as we can."
The 24-year-old agreed part of the secret of the recent success is the high fitness levels within the side which has seen them finish games in the ascendancy.
Remarkably, had Peter Dean slotted home the injury-time penalty it would have been the sixth time in seven matches Stones had scored in stoppage time. Chappell says it is a tribute to the work done on the training ground.
He added: "You read interviews and with teams like Manchester United, Arsenal and Barcelona a lot of it is possession football and keep ball and that is why we are so fit. We do small-sided keep ball, getting as many players in a square as we can and then widen it out at the end to almost a full football pitch size."
