IT is amazing what a goal can do for a player’s confidence.

No matter how many times you have hit the target in the past, the longer you go without scoring the tougher it gets.

We saw it at Worcester City with Danny Glover earlier this season as he put an injury-plagued spell behind him to net for the first time in three months against Histon on January 26.

Reinvigorated, the striker promptly banged in four goals in his next three games as he became City’s dangerman.

Now, the spotlight is slowly turning towards Mike Symons, another player in desperate need of a confidence boost despite still being the club’s leading marksman.

For a player in such a rich vein of form in the first-half of the campaign, he has endured contrasting fortunes of late.

Indeed, of his 12 goals this season, only one has come since the turn of the year, as a substitute in the 2-0 victory at Stalybridge Celitc.

By his own admission, Symons has fallen short of what we have come to expect from him and was dropped to the bench for six games.

But the former Gloucester hitman, who returned to the starting 11 for last Saturday’s 1-0 defeat to Guiseley, is determined to rediscover his scoring touch.

If we’re looking for omens, City head to Halifax this Saturday and Symons struck in a 2-1 defeat the last time Worcester visited the Shay, in January 2012.

He said: “I have had a bit of a barren spell in the last couple of months and not taken my opportunities but hopefully, towards the end of the season, I will get a few more goals.

“You always want to play but I had been a bit off my game. Michael Taylor came in and did really well so I sat there and watched and waited for the opportunity to play again.”

He continued: “We had a very good performance at Halifax last year but we conceded two late goals so hopefully we won’t do that again because I thought we played really well that day.

“It’s a good place to go, a big stadium with a lot of people. It’s a good environment to play in. We just want to get back to playing how we can, get some consistency and build on last Saturday’s performance because we have got some big games coming up.”

He’s not wrong. As well as Halifax, City are due to face play-off-chasing Gainsborough Trinity and Altrincham during March as they bid to cling on to their hopes of finishing in the top five.

Having suffered three straight defeats, their worst run of the season, the priority now has to be ensuring a strong finish to the campaign.

The performance against Guiseley was a vast improvement on the Harrogate and Solihull Moors displays and Symons is remaining upbeat.

“It was frustrating because I felt we played well and defended really well,” he said. “We had a few opportunities in the second-half which if we had taken them we would have gone on to win the game.

“It’s frustrating to concede late on but there were a few positives in the way we went forward and everyone worked hard for one another.”