Gary Naysmith: Ross Forbes' goal for Warriors against Annan worthy of winning any game

The Warriors’ 3-2 victory over the Galabank outfit, thanks to Forbes’ cracking winner and goals from Matty Yates and Nat Wedderburn, moved them above Peter Murphy's team in the table.

Stenhousemuir are now on 38 points, one above Annan and two above East Fife in fourth – who they take on this weekend at Ochilview.

“It was fantastic,” Naysmith said of the winning goal. “You get a wee bit over excited at the time because it was in injury-time and it was such a brilliant strike. It was one of those goals that was worthy of winning any game.

“I actually said to Peter Murphy (Annan Athletic’s boss) after the game that a draw was probably a fair result, and he agreed with that, but what he did say was sometimes goals of that quality deserve to win a team a match. That probably sums it up."

On the match, the former Scotland international says the call to play with an attacking line-up paid off.

Naysmith added: “We should have taken something from Dumbarton last midweek but our first-showing was poor and it was enough to probably edge us away from deserving a point.

“Going into the Annan game, we knew what a win would do in terms of the league table, and we set up in a positive manner.

“We went with the two strikers up top and Matty (Yates) out wide so in theory we had three forwards on the pitch from the off.

“The goal was to go out and win the game and it puts us in a good position for now.”

With the season now heading towards its conclusion, the boss says another points return similar to this quarter is a must if they are to keep their place in the promotion play-off positions.

“In the third quarter, the guys have done a brilliant job, that’s 18 points from nine games, which is a brilliant return,” Naysmith said.

“The biggest thing for us was getting a reaction and we got that. We had three away games and a fair bit of travelling and we came out of it in third place.

“What we need to do now is continue that points return into the final part of the season if we want to be in the play-offs.”

"The theory between myself and the coaching team was that if Annan won on Saturday, we would have been five points behind them, and that would have been a big challenge with nine games to go.

“We could have gone out to get a point and keep it tight but we wanted to have a go and win the game. The momentum from doing that is brilliant.

“The table looks good just now but there is a long, long way to go and that starts against East Fife. There will be so many twists and turns.

“The incentive is there for the players to open up a bit of a gap on them by winning.”