A place in the Third Round of the FA Cup could be in Gillingham’s hands if they beat Exeter City on Saturday and striker Dominic Samuel is looking forward to it.

Gillingham go into Saturday’s Emirates FA Cup Second Round tie with League Two Exeter City at Priestfield with both sides coming into the game in form off the back of midweek League wins.

Whilst the Devon side crushed Colchester United six one, the Gills beat a Wimbledon side at Priestfield for the first time in nearly forty years with Dominic Samuel scoring the winner off the back of the two goals the Gillingham number nine scored in the Round One come from behind win over Woking. 

“To be fair the confidence is high amongst the camp at the moment,” Samuel told KSN this week continuing, “even though we haven’t won, our performances have still been high and I think that it’s always been in our minds even though we haven’t been picking up as many points as we would have wanted to, the performances have still been there and we’ve been working hard and it’s now starting to show now.”

“I’ve settled back into the dressing room pretty quickly – the boys have welcomed me in – the coaching staff, the manager, everyone really – they’ve all welcomed me like one big family and that’s starting to show on the pitch as well.”

“It helped that I knew the club before – it plays a massive factor. I knew the club’s history from when I was here before and for me it was a no brainer coming back.”

“I feel like on a personal note, if I’m looking at my career as a whole, I feel that my performances as a whole have been good, but whilst I’m being harsh on myself, I should be getting a few more goals than I have done, but sometimes in games it’s not always going to fall for you – sometimes you have to up the work rate first and I feel that this League gets tougher every single year and so you’ve got to put the work rate first and when that starts paying off, the goals will start coming in and I feel that they are starting to come in now.”

“I’ve always said in football that you’ve got to learn to play in more than one role and I know to play in the wide position as well, so sometimes as a player you’ve just to got to be prepared if you’re going to play in another position, you’ve just got to make sure that you’re one hundred percent as well as playing your main position as well.”

“That’s what the Gaffer likes to do – he likes to change it up sometimes and as a player you’ve just got to be ready and stay one hundred percent!”

The FA Cup is revered the world over and Samuel admitted his love of the competition. “I’ve always watched the FA Cup ever since I was a little boy,” he said.

“There is magic stuff that happens in the FA Cup and there’s never an easy game in the competition. We’d like to go a long way and I personally would love to have a Cup run so it really is something to look forward to.”

“I supported Chelsea growing up and still am to be honest – it’s always been Chelsea for me! If we can get a win on Saturday a trip to Stamford Bridge in Round Three would be great and it would be great to win as well as you never know in the FA Cup, but we’ve got to get the weekend first.”

“I’ve played in the Third Round when I was at Blackburn but the furthest I think I’ve ever got is Round Four so hopefully this time round with the performances that we’ve been putting in we can go on a good Cup run.”

“We all know that Saturday will be a tough game for us. When we played Woking in the last round, even though they were in a lower League, they made it really tough for us.”

“Any team that is still in the competition at this stage won’t make it easy for any team really. So going into Saturday we won’t be thinking that they’ll be an easy game – we have to approach it like a League game against a top team, and if we go into the game with that mindset, I’m sure we can be in the Third Round draw.”