ALEX Rodman hopes the confidence boost he gained from scoring in the win at Hyde will help him to pin down a regular spot in the Grimsby Town side.
So far, the former Aldershot man has been mainly been restricted to substitute appearances, with his only start this season coming in the defeat to Welling United earlier this month.
But within minutes of coming off the bench on Bank Holiday Monday against Hyde, Rodman scored what proved to be the winner, and strengthened his bid to win a regular slot in the process.
"Obviously I want to be playing week-in, week-out and the goal against Hyde will certainly do me no harm," he told the Telegraph.
"It felt great to finally get off the mark and it was made all the better for knowing that it helped to get us the three points."
"Whenever I go on to the pitch, I want to do all I can to stake my claim and grabbing the winner is always going to be a massive confidence boost towards doing that.
"We'll have to see how it goes. It's a long season and when the team are performing and getting results it's always going to be hard to get in if you're out of the team.
"I'll just keep working hard and my time will come. A goal does wonders when you're a forward player, and hopefully that will kick me on and begin to show in my performances from now on."
With the win over Hyde, Town moved to within a point of the Conference's early pace-setters and, although Rodman is not getting carried away, he admits that it is good to be mixing it at the top already.
He continued: "It is early but even when you're only a couple of games into the season, you want to be up there because otherwise, teams can start to run away with it a little bit.
"People are now going to be looking at us now and thinking 'crikey, Grimsby are going well'.
"I don't think we've quite hit fifth gear yet, but we'll keep working hard and hopefully it will be other teams chasing us at the top soon."
