Following a successful day at the Cheltenham Festival for Chris Humphrey and his PNE team-mates, the winger is now betting on a winning league run.
Although they are undefeated in 11 league games, North End are not the team with the best form book in terms of games to points ratio, that bragging right goes to Monday night’s visitors to Deepdale Sheff Utd, who boast a perfect ten wins from ten games.
But Humphrey believes that a minor tweak here and there could see the Lilywhites finish their League One campaign in a similar vein of form.
Speaking exclusively to PNE.Com, Humphrey said: “With Wolves, Orient and Brentford all flying at the minute, very rarely dropping points, it is very important that we start picking points up in this last ten games.
“The main thing for me, I can only speak for my opinion, I don’t know about anyone else, is to not be conceding silly goals with a minute to go and stuff like that, it is heart-breaking, it feels like you have lost.
“And the amount of times we have done that this season, if we had just clung on for that extra two minutes or whatever, we would be in an automatic place now and that is the frustrating thing, but ten games left,
keep playing the way we do and just tighten up a bit.
“We are an all-round team and I don’t see why we can’t give it one big push.
“It is just the mental strength, nothing to do with ability or the passion or the desire or just needing to run that extra bit as you saw on Tuesday.
“You have got people head-butting posts and stuff like that to keep balls out, that’s what we have got in the team, we have got people like that who lead by example.
“So it has got nothing to do with that, it is keeping mentally strong and seeing games out as a team, not individually, as a team.
“That is the only thing, because if we had done that on Tuesday, we would have won the game, so as a team, we just need to be stronger in that sense because I’m not worries about anything else.”
Humphrey and Canadian international Iain Hume paired up for a winning day at Cheltenham and Humphrey believes that such team building events are great for moral, particularly at this time of the season.
He continued: “The horse racing was really good, the only other racing I have ever been to is at Hamilton up in Scotland, so that is nothing obviously compared to Cheltenham.
“It was another experience for me and we had a really good day.
“The boys and the staff got together and it was good team bonding, so yes I really enjoyed it.
“Me and my little partner Iain Hume won a few races, we looked like a couple of old men betting and shouting and screaming at the TV and stuff!
“It was a really good day and I really enjoyed it.
“I came away even, bought some food, had a few bets and still came away with what I went with so it was a good day all-round.
“It has come at a good time [the team bonding], the gaffer has done it at a good time with ten games left, we needed something like that, a bit of bonding and something apart from football and coming into training everyday and it was nice to get out, get somewhere different, suited and booted and just have a bit of fun.”
Now the fun of the horse racing is over, the serious faces are back on at Deepdale, or Springfields in particular, as the work begins on preparing for the live Monday night football clash on Sky Sports.
And the Jamaican international believes this is the latest ‘massive game’ in a long list this campaign.
“The hard work starts again today, it is about being professional again, coming back to earth and we will start that off by going out to training today and doing a bit of work,” added the PNE No.7.
“It is another massive game; I say it every week when someone asks me about the next game.
“All I seem to keep saying is ‘it’s a massive game’, that is the pressure we are under with all the other teams below us just pushing all the way, especially Rotherham, so Monday is very, very important.
“I keep saying to people that I think we just need to improve a little at home, we are very good away, we are solid, we are compact and we work from our shape, we know we can score and defend when we need to.
“I just think we need to take a little bit more of that into home games and start winning a few home games.
“But I’m looking forward to Monday, we don’t have many Sky games down here, in Scotland you have a few up there, but it is always nice to play on Sky if selected.
“I am fit and ready to play if selected, so I am really looking forward to it.”