Jon Brady was delighted as first half goals from Marc Leonard and Mitch Pinnock secured a 2-0 away win at Burton Albion.
“It was a bruising encounter and credit to the players they stood up to the challenge,” he said.
“The first ten minutes was quite tough and we knew we had to get through that early storm.
“We played some really good football and opened Burton up. Marc Leonard is on fine form and the goal took the wind out of their sales.
“I felt we were quite comfortable in the second half and its brilliant for Louie Moulden to get a clean sheet. He’s a good young goalkeeper growing in confidence and he looked very assured today.
“We haven’t had a clean sheet for a while and I’m really pleased for the whole team.
“The players' decision making was excellent today, Burton are a hard side to play against, they’ve had some really good results and not many teams have opened them up like we did.
“We have still got a few goals to achieve this season and we want to finish strong. We are not patting ourselves on the back yet, this league is unrelenting and we have to keep working hard.
“Sam Hoskins is fully fit and he is champing at the bit to play but with the pitch today I didn’t think it was worth the risk bringing him on unless we really needed to.”