THE character we show on our travels during the remainder of the season is going to hold the key to our chances of making the Nationwide Lea-gue Division Three play-offs.

That's how it seems to be shaping up after we lifted ourselves to within three points of the play-off zone thanks to Abdou Sall, Colin Larkin and Dean Bennett's second-half goals against Hartlepool United on Saturday.

We've now got 11 games left and seven are those are away from home and to pick up points out of those is going to take character, starting with tonight's match at Oxford United.

The prize we are playing for is bigger than Oxford's as their season is over, but it's going to take a big effort to get our rewards at places like that.

In the 16 away league games that we've played so far we've only managed to win four. That's a quarter which isn't enough.

We've got to find three more away wins before the end of the season to give us a real chance, and starting with a win at Oxford tonight would be tremendous.

The fact that we've now got so few games left to play, and to be as near as we are to the play-off places, gives you a feeling that it might just go right to the wire.

There's still the top 11 teams in the table to choose from. Hartlepool are currently 11th but have two home games to play now. If they can win both of them, which very often than not they do, then they will see themselves as being back in the hunt. So, as I say, I think it's going to be very close.

On Saturday when we were 1-0 down at half time the players got themselves together during the interval and said 'if we are going to chuck it away. then let's chuck it away showing a bit of character'.

It was that kind of spirit and character in the second half that got them the points.

We certainly didn't start the game particularly well which is a long time since we can say that. We normally start really well, so we need to get back to doing that at Oxford tonight.

On the other hand, of course, if we do start like we did against Hartlepool and still go on and win the game then I can live with that.

I felt it could have been worse in the first half on Saturday than it was. Obviously, in the second half we were the better team. They had a couple of chances and they didn't take them, but I think in the second period you have got to give credit to our players.