CAPTAIN Luke Joyce hopes his first goal of the season sparks a personal best, and sets Accrington Stanley on the road to winning ways.

The 27-year-old could never be described as a goalscoring midfielder, with three in 2011/12 his biggest return.

But after getting off the mark early in Saturday’s 2-2 draw at home to Luton Town he hopes it is a sign of things to come for him and the Reds.

Stanley make the short trip to Bury tomorrow aiming to make shorter work of chalking off their first win of the season than a year ago.

They finally got a lucky break at the 13th attempt in League Two.

But ahead of tomorrow’s derby at Gigg Lane, Joyce is confident they will not have to wait that long again.

“We’ve got the core of the squad still here from last year,” he said.

“We all know how it felt last season and how we got ourselves out of that, and we’ve got plenty of quality in the squad.

“There’s no need to panic or start getting worked up.

“We’ve just had a bit of bad luck.

“I don’t think the results have reflected the games in a true way, but at the end of the day that’s football. If we can get scrappy 1-0 or 2-1 wins like Southend and Cheltenham did against us we’d be delighted.”

Tomorrow, at Bury, would be a good starting point for Joyce and co.

“You always look forward to a local game, and the pressure’s off us a little bit because they’re one of the favourites for the league,” the former Carlisle midfielder continued.

“They’ve spent a bit of money and are having a real good go, bringing in players from higher divisions, and I’d expect them to be up there at the end of the season.

“But we can go there confident in our game plan.”

Joyce has his personal plan too after getting off the mark last weekend.

“I was delighted to get my goal,” he said. “One of my aims for the season is to start scoring more.

“I’ve not got an amazing scoring record so that’s something I’d like to work on and contribute more to and take the pressure off the strikers. You need goals from all around the team.”

The only disappointment after contributing to a 2-0 lead was that they could not secure the win.

“It can be a dangerous scoreline, especially when it’s in the first 16 minutes. It’s almost too early to be 2-0 up, if that’s possible.

“We should have seen it out, we should have been stronger and more resolute.

“But it was an important point in the end and we will work on things to take into the Bury game and try to get the win there."