His impressive performances of late have deservedly earned him a Championship Player of the Month nomination, but Mark Duffy is more concerned with helping the team turn around their season.
And that’s something the diminutive midfielder has been an integral part of lately.
The former Scunthorpe United midfielder could not hide his delight following the announcement of the prestigious player nomination during a month which has seen him pick up an array of Man of the Match awards as he helped engineer Doncaster’s push away from the relegation zone.
One particular star performance of Duffy’s came in the 3-0 thumping of Charlton Athletic where his danger-man display was capped off with a fine solo goal in the 67th minute.
“I only found out about the nomination on Thursday morning after the gaffer told me,” the 27-year-old said.
“The gaffer said ‘Congratulations’ to me, I said ‘What for?’ and he told me I had been nominated so I was really pleased. Delighted really.”
The winger went on: “I am pleased with my own performances but I’m more happy we’re picking up points and getting ourselves up the league a bit more.
“Hopefully we can continue that form and get ourselves up that league and push on a little bit.”
The nomination comes following a huge turnaround for Duffy himself - who was nominated alongside Sheffield Wednesday goalkeeper Chris Kirkland, the free-scoring Adam Le Fondre of Reading and Leicester City’s own ‘fox-in-the-box’ David Nugent.
For the Iron midfielder arrived only last summer but initially struggled to fit into Paul Dickov’s plans.
Duffy found himself only playing bit-part roles on Doncaster’s first team flanks as he appeared to clock up more game-time for Rovers’ reserves.
However, the Rovers chief has been delighted with the progress his new arrival has made after telling Duffy he needed to work on his off-the-ball duties as well as continue to be a danger from a dead ball and provide pinpoint deliveries from open play.
“It started a little bit slow [his Rovers career]. Slower than I thought it would’ve been,” Duffy admitted.
“But that was down to myself really and not performing as well as I should’ve been really.
“I waited patiently for my chance and when my chance came, I worked hard and tried to keep my place in the team.
“Now I can kick on.”
His recent resurgence has also no doubt helped Rovers in their 2014 resurrection.
In turn, Duffy’s displays have created healthy competition in the Rovers’ ranks with David Cotterill and James Coppinger both vying for a starting spot down the channels.
And Duffy felt the recent 0-0 draw with Middlesbrough only helped to highlight Doncaster’s January turnaround as points will prove vital come May time.
“It’s massive for us [to keep the good form going],” he said.
“We didn’t play particularly well against Boro but we picked up a point. I think that’s the key really.
“We can’t play well every time but we have to have that mentality that we won’t get beat and that will take us a long way.”
Video courtesy of Doncaster Rovers’ Player/YouTube channel.