Gillingham keeper Glenn Morris made his 100th appearance for the Club on Tuesday night and travels North this weekend with the rest of the squad hoping that it will be third time lucky for the players to be able to give new boss Gareth Ainsworth his first win since taking over. 

Speaking at this week’s briefing, Morris was naturally proud to have reached the milestone and told us, “I’m very proud to have reached the landmark!”

“It does feel as though it’s been a long time coming, especially when you remember that in my first spell at Priestfield, I didn’t play too many!”

“But I have few more (appearances) this time and its very nice to have reached one hundred.” 

“The Club has changed a lot in the ten years since I made my first debut – different owners, lots of different things going on, a real feel-good factor and we just need to keep that going, and the fans are very important to that, and they back us in their numbers!” 

“On Tuesday we were very happy with the intensity that we played and the performance overall, but we were disappointed that we didn’t get all three points.”

“But that is the way that we want to play, that’s the way we have to play, and we want to back Tuesday up on Saturday – that performance cannot be a one off or in spells, you must do it week in, week out.” 

“From the moment Gareth (Ainsworth) came in, the message has been to get on the front foot and get after teams, stamping our authority on the game and I think you could really see that on Tuesday.”

“It really was a pleasure to play behind if I am honest – for large spells I was trying to watch it almost the same as you –trying to encourage and it was brilliant to see and just a shame that we couldn’t get the win!” 

“We’ve had meetings and done a little bit on the training ground, and whilst we haven’t done as much as Gareth would have liked, you can sense that everyone is buying into his messages.”

“There is a good feel about things – obviously we must keep our feet on the ground as we are a long way away from where we want to be, but hopefully, it’s a step in the right direction!” 

The “only” thing that possibly dented Morris’ evening was the controversial goal that Colchester scored. “We know that we could have defended it better in the situation,” Morris admitted, “But it is hard when the ball has gone out a long way and it’s not been given… it’s one of them!”

“It didn’t define us and that is the major positive as we didn’t let our heads drop and we didn’t let it bother us, and we went straight back into the game on the front foot and that is a real positive for me.” 

Max Clark’s late penalty gained the Gills a late point and Morris admitted that he hasn’t faced any of them in training as the full-back converted two spot kicks in two games.

“Not yet,” the Gills keeper said, “But he has a lovely left foot, and it fills you with confidence when he does step-up, but it is crazy that we went nearly three months without a penalty and then we get two so quickly. If we do get another one, I am fully confident that Max will put it away.”