Hucknall Town boss Andy Ingle urges his side to open up a gap at the top

Hucknall became the first side to beat Birstall United this season with a 1-0 away win on Saturday, the home side shown two red cards, before a late winner saw them win a thrilling derby game 3-2 at Clipstone on Tuesday.

“I said if we can make a bit of a foothold in that top five now and then start to create a gap from fifth down to about eighth, once you start to open that gap up it's very hard for the chasing teams,” said Ingle.

“I wanted us to be top five by about seven or eight game so we have probably done a bit better than – but it is a long, hard season and there will be lads coming in and lads coming out.

“We are now getting some back from injury too.”

Hucknall chalked up a third win a row at Clipstone, but needed an 88th minute winner from Keiran Knight after seeing a 2-0 lead pegged back.

Aaron Short bundled in from a corner on 18 minutes and Craig Westcarr headeed in another cforner two minutes later.

“To be fair new made hard work of it if I am honest,” said Ingle.

“We let them back into the game, yet we were coasting at half-time.

“But we go the win and had a chat about it after. It wasn't the way we wanted to do but the lads are showing quite a bit of resilience at the minute which wasn't something I didn't think they had.

“What we discussed seems to have sunk in. They have bought into it and just don't seem to give up which is a really good thing. It was the same on Saturday as well.

“We didn't stick to the game plan on Tuesday and we took the tempo out of the game – and it was tempo that had got us the two quick goals in two minutes.

“Because we know how fit they are, we know they have learned to drop it off and, at other stages, bring it back up. We had a period in the first half where we were playing very mundane and slow. I warned them about it at half-time, as we saw that at Holwell first game of the season when we drew 3-3.

“But there were a couple of breaks in play and I managed to get word onto the pitch that we needed to do things differently.”