Steelmen must target the play-offs, says caretaker Kinniburgh

The Steelmen bounced back from the 3-2 home defeat to Lincoln United with a 2-1 success over Leek Town at Steel Park yesterday (Saturday) as they reached the halfway stage of their Evo-Stik League South campaign.With a number of teams having their matches postponed due to the weather, Corby took advantage and the victory moved them back up to fourth place.They are now three points behind Alvechurch, who currently sit in the second automatic promotion place behind runaway leaders Basford United, but have played four games more.But caretaker-manager Kinniburgh believes his team have given themselves a chance of having a say in the promotion issues.“We have reacted really well, every single player on the pitch put in an excellent performance,” he said.“As a team, we were much better all over the park, I thought we really stepped up our game.“If we can keep up that level of performance then the league table will continue to look good for us and it will give us a chance to push on in that play-off area, which must be our aim now.“I thought we were worthy winners and if the Leek management team were being honest, they would say that we were the better team on the day.“I thought we posed a bigger threat and we were solid, which was particularly pleasing with two of our experienced central defenders missing.“We really controlled the game and I am just very pleased with how we performed.”Kinniburgh handed a full debut to 17-year-old Dean McBride who played at the heart of the defence alongside Jamie Anton with Paul Malone absent due to a family wedding and Jason Lee missing the game for personal reasons.And the caretaker-boss was delighted with the youngster’s performance.“With Paul and Jason missing, it would have been easy to go and get another defender in on loan,” Kinniburgh added.“But Dean has been involved, he has been impressing with the youth team and in first-team training and we want to be the sort of club that gives these lads a chance.“He was understandably a bit shaky in the first half but in the second, you’d have thought he had played 15 games this season. I was really pleased for him.”Corby now have a week to prepare for their trip to bottom side Romulus next Saturday.