Halstead Town manager Mark Benterman was “over the moon” to see his team make a winning return in Thurlow Nunn League division one at Cornard United.

Having not had any action in almost a month due to waterlogged pitches, Town were glad to get a game, despite the difficult windy conditions and won the derby encounter 2-0 to move back up to fourth in the table.

They missed out on a game in midweek after their trip to Braintree Town Reserves was postponed, but Benterman is hoping his players can keep the pressure on at the top with a good display at Ipswich Wanderers tomorrow.

Benterman said: “Cornard’s manager is the ex-manager of our reserves and they have about 15 to 20 boys who used to be at Halstead so it was more than a derby.

“We were all playing for pride.

“Regardless of what the conditions were, we needed to turn up and get the three points.

“We did that and I was over the moon with the boys – mainly with the points but really we can take something out of the performance as well.

“Now it’s time to push on.

“We’ve added some strength to the squad and I think we can do that.

“We can push on back into the top three.

“We have two games in hand on Whitton, we’re six points behind them and we have to play them still so anything can happen.

“They haven’t dropped many points, but you can’t go a whole season doing that.

“If they have a blip, then we’ll be there to pounce on them.

“We have had one and other teams pounced on us, but we have a chance to get back up there and we need to now win our games in hand.

“That’s why getting three points at Cornard was so important and we now look forward to Ipswich Wanderers tomorrow.”