Sean Regan saw his side battle hard for the full 90 minutes against a resolute East Yorkshire Carnegie side on Saturday afternoon, but The Eagles were rewarded for their hard work when debutant Aran Basi popped up with the winner in the dying embers of the game.

Discussing the scrappy nature of the game and the three points being the main thing, Sean stated; “That’s all that counts, the three points. At the end of the day, it was a scrappy game and to come out of it in the manner that we did, notching that goal in the manner that we did whilst keeping a clean sheet, we’re happy with that.”

Next, Eccleshill’s never say die attitude was talked about, and how Sean was happy his players stuck it out against a resolute defence; “I think it wasn’t necessarily an issue of us getting past their defence, I think it was more what we did, it just wasn’t running for us.”

He added; “It wasn’t a bad day at the office because we played some good football, it was just that last thing that didn’t work. Fair play to the lads, they stuck with it instead of getting frustrated, again it showed a lot of character, we stuck with it till the ref blew his whistle and got what we deserved.”

New signing Aran Basi was the unexpected source of the winning goal, something Sean was delighted with; “I said before the game that Aran is a big signing for us, it was just a good opportunity to put him on today.”

“He went on and got a couple of good touches, his distribution’s good, he’s a big lad so he’s a winner and he’s used his physical presence from set plays. It’s brilliant for him to score for us on his debut, class!”

The Eagles have a very strong squad as shown by the quality of the substitutes used on Saturday, and that squad depth is something Sean acknowledges as being vital in the promotion battle; “It’s massive, the thing is about it, we’ve got lads in the squad that can do a number of roles like Anny (Anil Singh) and Basi who came on today.”

He went on to say; “We had to do something to change it on the pitch, so that’s why we put those two on there and pushed Charlie (Flaherty) and Coops (Andy Cooper) forward, which worked for us.”

Finally, league leaders Knaresborough Town were held to a draw by Winterton Rangers on Saturday, which saw Eccleshill close the gap at the summit to just six points.

When asked if that was something that pleased him, Sean replied; “I think it’s important that we just keep winning games if I’m honest, not looking at Knaresborough. It’s good they only got a point out of it, but we’ve got to keep getting results in the manner that we did today.”

“If we keep doing that, at some point there isn’t going to be enough games for anyone else to catch us more to the point. It’s important we just take it a game at a time.”

The Eagles’ promotion push continues when they travel to Swallownest FC on Saturday afternoon, looking to secure another three points and solidify their grip on the automatic promotion places.