Daggers Still going strong for play-offs (From This Is Local London)

Daggers Still going strong for play-offs

9:30am Thursday 11th March 2010 in

• Skip social links
• Print
• Email
• Comments(0)

JOHN STILL has battled back from health problems and now he wants to fire the Daggers back into the promotion race.

The manager of Dagenham & Redbridge was in the familiar territory of the dugout again at last weekend’s goalless draw at Bury.

It marked a return for him after he missed the previous match, away at Torquay.

He told the Guardian Series he can focus on football again, after a recent operation to remove kidney stones and gall stones.

“I’m fine,” said Still. “It went well. The last one was a week ago. Now I don’t see myself missing any games.

“Your health must come first, the players know that, and I’m looking forward to seeing as many games as possible now.”

This weekend, Rotherham are the visitors to Victoria Road. The pair clashed just over a month ago in League Two action, in a match which was rescheduled from December because of a frozen pitch.

The Millers won 2-0 that night.

“They are always a good side and I would not expect anything other than a very tough game,” said Still. But the Daggers have lost just once in five games, and Still wants to lift the team upwards to the play-offs.

“I think we are going well enough to get ourselves in the mix,” he said.

Daggers held promotion-chasing Bury away last weekend, in a show of their intentions.

That game featured three disallowed goals in the first half, including one by Josh Scott for offside. Near full time, Paul Benson could have snatched the win for the Daggers, when he broke through in the second half. But his effort sailed just wide of the post.

“That is quite rare to be honest,” reflected Still, on the goals that never were. “Two were definitely offside, including ours, and the third was borderline. That’s how it goes.”

He blamed uneven pitch conditions and a bad bounce of the ball for Benson’s miss.

“Really I think it was an entertaining encounter for 0-0,” he said “Both teams are in decent form. I think each would agree a draw was a fair result. Both teams tried to win, but the defences dominated.”