Could Stuart O’Keefe be Gillingham’s lucky charm as they pursue a Play Off place in SKYBet League One?

The midfielder, whose season looked over after being stretchered off early season in the Carabao Cup win over Coventry City, returned to the squad in January, and since then The Gills have lost just three of the fourteen games they’ve played after losing six of the seven immediately before O’Keefe’s return – in all the Gills have lost just four of the seventeen games that the midfielder has featured in.

And with nine games to go, and Steve Evans’ side sitting just two points off the treasured top six places, there is genuine hope that The Gills could make post season – a fact that isn’t lost on the players as O’Keefe admitted this week.

“If we’re going to achieve anything, we have to win matches. It’s the one thing about having back-to-back games if you don’t get a result there’s a chance round the corner to put things right.”

“It works the other way as well – when you come off a great result like we did at Lincoln last week, we had another game to look forward to almost straight away against another good team who are up there and a team we have to get something against if we’re going to effectively take their place.”

“The League table looks a lot better now than it did four weeks ago when we were sitting in fourteenth or fifteenth place – that’s pleasing in itself but in regard to the Play Off push, the players have just said to take each game as it comes as we’ve still got a lot of tough games to go.”

“We’ve got to tick them off – we put in a hard performance against Doncaster on Saturday, and we’ve got to just keep prodding away and we’ll see where we end up…”

“We have to be level-headed and realistic about it. We are close but we have played more games than others and we’ve a lot of tough games coming up especially away from home – and they don’t get much tougher than this week at Hull – but at the same time, we mustn’t lose sight of the fact that there is something that we can achieve here and as a player you don’t get that many opportunities in your career to play at Wembley many times – if any – so it’s a great opportunity and we must grasp it while we can.”

“We’re keeping our feet firmly on the ground, but at the same time it’s always nice to have that at the back of your mind that if we do it right and have a real good go, then there could be something special to be achieved at the end of it!”

“The experience that the manager and some of the boys have of situations like these is massive. The Manager and Paul Rayner have experienced this at other clubs pretty much throughout their careers, so they know what it takes and how to approach games and situations.”

“And there’s players who have been involved in the Plays Offs both positively and negatively and that all helps and that all comes together even more in our final push and every bit of experience will come in handy.”

The missing fans at Priestfield would have surely helped the club in the final push in what has been a frustrating home season.

“It can be difficult at times,” O’Keefe admitted. “Sometime when things aren’t going your way and we’re struggling and things seem flat, undoubtedly the fans give you the boost and the Rainham End try to pull the ball into the net, and it really does give us that little bit of an extra buzz.”

“Maybe that’s what was lacking in the first half of the season particularly at home when we couldn’t get a run together at Priestfield – we kept getting beaten more than we would have liked.”

“But we seem to have put that behind us now as we’ve put four good results against good teams together and if we can carry that momentum on and really build up some form at Priestfield and make it a real fortress for the remaining games without the fans, it will give us a great chance of making the Play Offs!”

Picture supplied by Gillingham Football Club.