 He then made his league debut on 14 August 2010 in a 1–0 win against Crawley Town and scored his first league goal in the 2–1 home defeat against Hayes & Yeading.Connell went on to score 14 goals in his opening 19 appearances for The Mariners doubling the total of the previous season's top goalscorer Peter Sweeney and doing so in little over two months into the season, prompting club chairman John Fenty to state in a fans forum that the club would be aiming to keep Connell and not cash in on the forward in the January transfer window.On 1 January 2011 Connell scored two free kicks which were his 18th and 19th goals of the season during Grimsby's 7–2 victory over Mansfield Town.