DON'T expect Gary Taylor-Fletcher to give up his first-team shirt without a fight.

The 24-year-old frontman has forced his way back into Peter Jackson's Town line-up and intends to stay.

His longest run of starts so far is just seven matches - a sequence he has achieved twice - but he's hoping to play a much bigger part in the closing quarter of the season as Town push for promotion.

"This is a fantastic club to be at and I would like to play more games, but that's up to the gaffer," said Fletcher, who signed last summer from Lincoln City.

"All I can do is continue to give 100% in every game I play and hope that that's enough.

"Whether it is or not we'll have to wait and see, but I certainly feel a lot better now than I did earlier in the season.

"It's all to do with being settled in Huddersfield and in our new house (at Fenay Bridge).

"I'm not feeling the effects of all the travelling that I was doing before and it's great not to have two hours drive before training and two hours afterwards as well.

"Now I'm just two minutes down the road and I'm feeling a hell of a lot better for it."

His form since going on as a substitute at Tranmere has been very solid and he hopes to turn successive starts against Colchester (when he was man-of-the-match) and Blackpool into an extended run.

He has already got 10 goals for the season, including last-gasp equalisers against both Rotherham and Barnsley and that glorious FA Cup strike to level against Chelsea which, for a wonderful few minutes, promised to reward 6,000 jubilant travelling fans with a replay.

The Liverpudlian - who also scored a Carling Cup hat trick at Chesterfield - is determined, however, that those won't be the high points of his season.

"We have never taken our sights off going for automatic promotion and we are right in the thick of the chase," he explained.

"Hopefully we will be going into the Swansea game next Friday with another three points under our belt from MK Dons and that will really set everything up.

"Swansea will be a massive game whatever. They have been having a little blip with three defeats and a draw in their last five games and they will be desperate to pick themselves up again.

"But we know how big a game it is and how important it is to come back with something from such a long trip and live on TV, so we'll be giving it everything.

"If we come back with three points, it could really make our season, because this is definitely the time to be pushing ourselves on."

Fletch admits the Blackpool win - which completed a double in the space of a month - was a real effort in terrible conditions, but he feels it showed the strength of character in the squad.

"It wasn't the best of games, but we really dug in and worked for each other," he said.

"The conditions were lousy with a howling wind and an awful pitch, but Phil Senior and the defenders did really well and you can't argue with a clean sheet.

"It's like the gaffer says, if we keep more clean sheets we will win more matches, because we are always liable to score.

"To be honest, I thought we deserved it because of the workrate we put in and I know people will say we were only up against 10 men but it's not always that simple - just look back to the Colchester game!"

Asked if the forwards should have scored more goals, he just smiled.

"I consider myself as a midfielder now, thank you very much!," he joked.

"I suppose you could say we're disappointed not to have scored more and put the result beyond doubt, but we got the three points and that's all that really matters.

"We have put ourselves right back on the tails of the leaders and we want to keep up the pressure.

"At the beginning of the season we had all those wins and, even though we've not done so well since December, no-one has managed to take a big advantage on us.

"Other results have been going for us and now we've started to win again we need to keep it going."

So how happy is Fletch with his own form?

"I'm feeling good," he answered.

"I could say it's down to competition for places, but the main factor for me is being settled in the area instead of travelling all the time.

"I have felt a lot, lot better since we moved in and, hopefully, everyone can see how much work I'm putting into the games.

"I always give 100% and I never stop running and, in my view, that's all you can do.

"If it's not going well for me personally, I always aim to work hard for the rest of the team.

"That's what I'm always willing to do and, hopefully, it will be good enough for the lads, the manager and the fans."