Gillingham believing at last

Gillingham's new-found self-belief was behind their second consecutive home win, according to caretaker manager Steve Lovell.

Two goals from John Marquis, on loan from Millwall, put the Gills two goals in front inside the opening 14 minutes. Oldham rallied with quick-fire goals from Liam Kelly and Dominic Poleon to level before the interval. But Bradley Dack popped up with the winner 20 minutes from time, earning Gillingham back-to-back home league victories for the first time since March. Lovell said: "I think the players have got a lot of belief in themselves; a belief to produce chances and win games. "If people start believing in things, they'll do them. Their will and desire was a major factor in the win. "Overall, with the ball, perhaps it wasn't our best performance in the last five games, but we've worked hard defensively. "The boys dug in, they showed character after being pegged back to 2-2 and in the second half we rolled our sleeves up and we had a belief about our performance. "John Marquis produced two great finishes, he passed both of them into the net, which is a good skill to have. "Sometimes strikers just want to blast them into the net. "He's been a great acquisition and he's somebody the fans have warmed to." Marquis put the hosts in front with a low shot then took advantage of a mishap from defender James Wilson to double up. Kelly followed up to fire in from close range on the rebound after Danny Philliskirk had his penalty parried by Gillingham goalkeeper Stuart Nelson - Connor Brown had been bundled to the ground in the box - and the visitors levelled in the 23rd minute when Poleon dispossessed Nelson and slotted into an empty net. But Dack's deflected effort looped over Latics goalkeeper Paul Rachubka to earn the Gills maximum points. Oldham boss Lee Johnson said: "I'm disappointed to lose the game, but I felt we gave it a real go. I'm proud of the players for that. "We let ourselves down on a couple of things - we didn't have enough quality for all our dominance in the final third, and there were a couple of individual errors at the start. "If you give somebody a two-goal lead, it's difficult to grab a hold on the game. "Their goals were crazy, we should have been comfortable because we didn't have any threats to deal with. "The first goal was sloppy, it's the type of defending that we do day in, day out, which is why it disappoints me so much. "James Wilson had a little prance up the field for their second and gave the ball away. "At 2-2, I thought we were looking like we'd go on and win it. We were the stronger side."