Neil Harris left Grimsby last week an annoyed manager as Gillingham slumped to their second League defeat in a row with the manager demanding a return of the missing “Gillingham spirit” … 

In post-match interviews after the 2-0 defeat, Harris demanded a response from his players, and admitted that he got it in Tuesday’s win over Leyton Orient – he told us, “I didn’t say a lot in the changing room before the game on Tuesday as I wanted to see the players response, as I was asking for a professional responsibility to the game as I knew that Orient would come strong, so we picked a team accordingly.”

“I thought they were for twenty minutes were really, really good and it was the game that we needed. We had to defend our goal, relying on our goalkeeper at times, but that’s what you want in tough games – you want the real-life League Two experience in games and we got it against a team that won the division last year.”

“It couldn’t have been better for us, and I got the response as well… we tinkered with the side at half time and got the response second half and that was probably the most pleasing thing of all.”

“The tinkering at half time and the lads delivered second half was really impressive and I can’t praise the group highly enough.” 

“But we set our standards for five games, we set our standards for Leyton Orient, set our standards against Luton, first half against Colchester we dominated and should have been in front, but for a game and a half we dipped, and we cannot afford to dip this year as we’re not at that level, but that’s the same for all League Two teams – if you’re half a yard off, you will get punished in the League this year!” 

Harris had a word of praise for keeper Glenn Morris who “recovered” from the desperate disappointment of the unluckiest of own goals just before the break, to pull off a marvellous save late on to secure the victory.

“Thats experience for you isn’t it,” the manager admitted. “He didn’t let the OG put him down or disrupt him which he’s learned over a period of time.”

“That said, Jake (Turner) has done great for us and hasn’t been at fault for any of the goals, but Glenn’s done brilliantly in the games he’s played – I’ve got two number ones, and the fight is on that starting position all the time.” 

“If we do dip, I’d rather not do it for a full game, but rather than when we played Crawley where we weren’t great, but we dug in and got a result.”

“And that’s the thing – in our last home League game against Colchester for twenty minutes we didn’t dig in and at Grimsby we didn’t have that “Gillingham spirit” about us and that’s what we’ve got to make sure that in that game and a half we have that down the line!” 

Harris then looked ahead with the weather forecast of temperatures around thirty degrees for the duration of the game against Harrogate on Saturday.

“I’d be lying if I said that the conditions won’t dictate things,” the Gills boss admitted. “It has to – what’s really tough is, because of the injuries that we have at the moment, trying to plan is proving difficult.”

“There’s going to be an element of risk on who can make the ninety minutes, so we’ll just have to adapt accordingly.”

“Water breaks have already been mentioned halfway through – we’re almost back to pre-season with what it’s going to be like.”

“What we’ve got to do is make sure that we don’t play it like a pre-season game, and we make sure that we’re at it and we’re setting the tempo playing at home!” 

Harris then confirmed that Tom Nichols, George Lapslie and Dom Jefferies will miss the game as will Tim Dieng as he was injured at Grimsby with a challenge that incensed the manager on the day.