Gillingham striker Oli Hawkins admitted their desire to go for goals on Saturday might have been their undoing.
Hawkins headed home an opener for the Gills and they were keen for more against a side who started the weekend sitting bottom of League 2. Gillingham’s lack of goals this season is something they’ve been keen to rectify.
But instead of adding more goals they conceded an equaliser soon after Hawkins had put them ahead and were then fortunate not to be beaten. The game ended 1-1 as the Gills hung on.
Hawkins said: “Maybe we focused too much on scoring a second and left ourselves a bit wide open and when you are down there like Forest Green are, you fight your way for every point and that is what they have done.
“We scored the first and we may have been too keen to try and score straight away and left ourselves open. There were a lot more gaps than normal.”
The Gills are the lowest scorers in the division but they’ve won plenty of matches, mostly 1-0.
Nine of their 13 league victories this season have been achieved by only scoring once.
Hawkins admitted that playing more defensively after going ahead might have been better than going for a second, saying: “Maybe for the next 10 minutes had we shut up shop a bit and gone more defensive we might have had a different outcome, but we do want to score more goals and win games 2-0, 3-0.
“Maybe it was our own fault, but those games are tough and once they scored it was always going to be hard.
“That isn’t normally like us, we are strong defensively and this season we’ve won a lot of games 1-0. I was shocked when they scored because that’s not normally like us, we don’t usually concede straight after scoring.”
Forest Green equalised just eight minutes after going behind and then were the team looking more likely to get a winner.
“The only positive you can take from it is that we are unbeaten in four,” Hawkins said, with the Gills winning their previous three in the league.
“We didn’t lose but it’s very frustrating that we couldn’t hold on and see it out.
“Our focus is now on MK Dons (next weekend), have a good week of training and if we get three points next week then we might look at this as an okay draw.”
Hawkins is back playing after missing the first half of the season with a heel injury and he was delighted to get his first goal this season.
But he said: “It’s always the same feeling when you score and you haven’t won, when you’ve scored and won the feeling is much better, but for myself individually I am happy I have scored and hopefully I can bring a few more goals.
“I have been feeling very confident in the last few games, I have started and got chosen which has been a confidence booster for myself and it’s always nice when you score as a striker.
“In the previous three games I had chances and I knew it was coming, I had to be patient, hopefully there are more to come.”
His headed goal on Saturday came from a corner and he might be getting more chances come his way now the Gills have got themselves a crossing specialist in the team.
Remeao Hutton’s arrival – joining for an undisclosed fee from Swindon – should see better delivery in the box but Hawkins knows they still have to get used to the new man.
Hawkins said: “I knew what kind of player he was from playing against him previously. He was good at getting the ball in the box and getting up and down the line.
“It is going to take a couple of games to get used to when he is going to cross it in and what kind of crosses he is going top put in. If you know what is coming in and you get yourself in the right positions you are going to score a few goals.”
