Striker Ryan Edmondson had a dream return to the action, following his shoulder surgery in December, when he came off the bench on Saturday afternoon to net the winner with almost the last touch of the game.
In what has been a stop-start first season with the club he entered the fold looking fit and sharp, and manager Paul Simpson was happy to sing his praises shortly after he’d witnessed the match winning heroics.
“Brilliant, absolutely brilliant,” the gaffer said. “He’s worked so hard to keep himself right. As soon as he could from surgery he was on with his broom handle and making sure he got his shoulder strength back up and got the stability in the joint.
“He’s worked hard on his fitness. I still think there’s a rustiness about him, but there will be. But that will give him a lift, everybody in the group a lift, the staff a lift and 500-odd supporters and however many thousand who were listening back home.”
“I sent him out there because he’s a different type of outlet for us,” he added. “I’m sure people will have looked and thought that Kris Dennis should get on as our leading scorer, but I just felt that this one was about Ryan Edmondson getting on there to compete and win things for us.
“He looks rusty, I admit that, and he needs more fitness work in him, but I felt that his physicality and aerial presence might just give us something a little bit different. On this occasion I was right, which is good for all of us.
“We thought we could get a set play that would count, we felt there was an area in terms of their zonal marking we could exploit. Thankfully it’s happened. It’s about good delivery and a desire to get on the end of it, and that’s what we’ve shown.
“And well done Mox for the delivery because he’s put one on the roof of the net not long before that. It shows the strength of character he has to be able to do that.
“I also liked the way we pressed because the ball is going back to the keeper, but we worked and we pressed and we tried to get around them. The keeper made a mistake, and he gave a cheap corner away. Then you have to have that composure to be able to put that delivery on the money. Mox did that and Edmo was there to nod it in.”
But the introduction of Edmondson mean that top scorer Kris Dennis had to sit it out, something which did bring comment from the fans with the score being locked at 1-1 heading into the final stages.
“I went with him simply because of the aerial threat,” he explained. “I think I’ve explained, I was trying to get the message on, and I blame myself a bit for the goal because I wanted to change our shape in midfield a bit before and I couldn’t get the message on.
“It’s really hard when the game’s so frantic and their crowd are making a noise, and ours are shouting, and I couldn’t get the message on to change it to go with a four across midfield. Unfortunately we conceded the goal in that time, but we showed character to keep going.”
And that final moment of drama was indeed the product of some excellent pressing that led to the home keeper scuffing a kick straight to a blue shirt.
“It was a big thing that we talked about because we did expect them to play out from the back” he said. “We talked about setting the traps to let them do it and I’ve got to say, in that 47 minutes in the first half and 90 odd minutes overall, I thought they played out from the back really well.
“But we’d told the lads that they needed to keep pressing, keep on it anyway, because we just might get that one opportunity that makes a difference.
“We wanted to see if we could force a mistake and, as in any game, it’s the team that makes the least mistakes that wins it. We saw a little bit of a mistake from them, or maybe it’s more accurate to say it’s a forced error, and we got a little bit of luck from it.”