Andy Lonergan will be taking more enjoyment than most from Saturday's trip to Home Park, with the outing representing his 100th career appearance provided he continues his unbroken run of first team appearances stretching back to September 1st.

'Lonners' was handed his opportunity to make a mark on the first team for the away trip to Coventry when Wayne Henderson was unfortunately ruled out with what turned out to be a season-ending back injury, and the Preston-born stopper has taken the chance with both hands to effectively double his career appearance tally throughout the course of 2007/08.

Speaking ahead of the milestone appearance, the PNE number one admitted that he's happy as long as he gets the game time to show what he can do - and can couple it with three points for his beloved Lilywhites.

"I think I've benefitted from the consistency of being in the team every game this season - particularly now the new manager has come in," he explained exclusively to Whites World.

"Obviously this season has seen the most games I've ever played in a campaign, and I think it's my 100th career game on Saturday so I'm quite pleased with that.

"I'm enjoying playing in virtually every game. Obviously when you're beaten you don't, but because I missed so much football back in my earlier career I'm just happy to be back playing again.

"Earlier in the season I was playing but I wasn't enjoying it because it was all over the show and the team had no game plan. Since Alan has come in, I've been less busy in games, and that's credit to how he's set the team up."

Lonergan has shown excellent mental strength to overcome the setback of two well-publicised errors at Sheffield Wednesday and Stoke in the first month of 2008 to become one of the first team's most reliable performers, and he appreciates that his efforts are going to be highlighted due to the unique nature of his position. He explained:

"I've made a couple of mistakes throughout the season, but when you watch Premier League goalkeepers, they'll make mistakes all the time. For goalkeepers, mistakes are definitely always highlighted - that's just the way it is. You've just got to deal with it, and I think that people make more of it than what it really is.

"It's going to happen, and sometimes you'll get away with it, sometimes you won't. I like to think of the positive side and the good things that you do in a game."

Now the hope is that Preston can take the positives from last Saturday's defeat to Barnsley and turn them into a tangeable points return on the south coast this weekend. Andy added:

"We've gone out and trained this week and everyone has looked sharp. We've had a couple of days off because the pitches have been 'untrainable', so no-one has really mentioned it.

"They [Barnsley] came with a game plan - so did we, and I think we used ours well - but we just lacked that cutting edge. I think we switched the ball around well but we couldn't break them down.

"They scored two good goals, so you've got to hold your hand up. One was obviously a penalty, which I'm a bit angry with, because I used to be really good with penalties but I haven't stopped one all season.

"I know Jon Macken from when he was here, and I know that he wants to really hammer the ball. However, for this one he showed a bit of composure and slotted it in the corner.

"For the free-kick, I dived at full stretch towards my post, and I really don't think there's much more I can do. You've got to hold your hands up and say 'well done' to the lad, but it wasn't a free-kick to start with, so I'm a bit disappointed about that.

"I personally believe that Plymouth will be a better game for us as a team. Plymouth need to beat us to continue their Play-Off aspirations, and when teams come to try and beat us, that's when we do better. When the pressure was on us to go at them last Saturday, we seemed to struggle a little bit.

"I think recently I've been a lot quieter than I have been previously in the season in terms of things to do, but I've been quite happy with my form all season."