YORK City left-back Nathan Peat believes the club can still stage a play-off push during the final third of the Conference season.

An impressive performance during Sunday's 3-2 home victory over Aldershot has rekindled the Minstermen's top-five ambitions.

The win has left Billy McEwan's men seven points adrift with 14 games left to play and Peat believes that gap is surmountable, pointing to the fact that City still have to play five of the seven teams currently above them in the table.

Leaders Accrington Stanley still have to visit KitKat Crescent, along with fellow promotion contenders Halifax and Hereford, while the Minstermen must also travel to third-placed Stevenage and, on Saturday, make the long trip to Exeter, who lie just one position above City.

Peat, who was recalled to the starting XI against the Shots, said: "We are still looking towards the play-offs because there's a long way to go. Only two thirds of the season have been played and we've still got 14 games to play.

"We've still got lots of teams above us to play, starting with Exeter on Saturday, so we can take points off them as well and it's great to still have that carrot of the play-offs to chase.

"I thought we played as well as we have done at any time in the last two months against Aldershot.

"We passed it as well as we could have done on our pitch and we also played some good stuff from the back, which was pleasing."

Peat completed 90 minutes against Aldershot in his first full league start for five months after a fractured leg injury.

The 23-year-old defender was preferred to Dave Merris in the starting line-up and was pleased by the team's performance although he felt the team's margin of victory should have been greater.

He said: "We could have had more goals and we were disappointed with the goals we conceded. They were poor goals even though their player scored a cracking free-kick for the second one."

Peat also praised the perseverance of his former Hull City team-mate Clayton Donaldson, who got back on the scoresheet against Aldershot to end a barren spell that had seen him score just once in 15 matches.

The City defender said: "I am glad for Clayton. He might not have been scoring recently but he hasn't stopped running and putting the effort in.

"Sometimes it's just been a matter of Bish (Andy Bishop) being in the right place rather than Clayton and it's also up to us to create chances for the forwards to score."

Peat added that he was impressed with Neil Bishop's full debut for the Minstermen after a deadline day switch from North Yorkshire rivals Scarborough.

He said: "I've never played with Bish and had only seen him in the games against Scarborough when I thought he did very well. He also impressed me for us and I thought he had a quality debut."

Updated: 09:40 Wednesday, February 15, 2006