OLD Boltonians pulled off their most important win of the season of the season so far and had manager Steve Eccleshare heaping praise on his players after their 1-0 defeat of Premier Division leaders Failsworth Dynamos on Saturday.

Darren Dalton scored the 80th-minute winner in what was a hard-fought encounter at Failsworth Soccer Centre and put his team in fifth place on 26 points, with games in hand.

Eccleshare told The Bolton News: “Considering the opposition we’ve had in the past eight weeks or so, it’s unbelievable we’ve come out with nine straight wins.

"I’m really proud of this team.

“The biggest thing that impresses me of late is the workrate of the players and the fact the team spirit seems to grow stronger and stronger by the week.”

The win put a halt on Dynamos' march to the title, who had been living up to their nickname by winning all 13 of their previous matches.

But Old Bolts themselves were on a winning streak of eight successive games ahead of the clash.

In difficult conditions the match was never going to be a pretty affair despite the sides being two of the league’s best.

Both defences gave everything and whenever there was so much as a glimpse of an opportunity, it was quickly extinguished.

Man-of-the-match winner and captain, David Warburton, gave a true leader’s performance.

Time after time he pushed his players forward, kept the team in formation, and, when called upon, was not afraid to put in a tackle.

It soon became clear it was a game that was going to be won by the odd goal, and so it proved.

With 10 minutes remaining, the ball broke to Nick Holt in midfield and, running at pace, he threaded a neat pass through to Dalton on the right who found himself clear to run on into the penalty box where he drilled a hard, low shot that carried too much venom for Failsworth’s keeper to do anything about.

The goal prompted Failsworth to change to a diamond formation in order to stage a late fightback but Old Bolts were too strong defensively and the hosts struggled to mount any kind of attack.

Eccleshare reserved special praise for full-backs Jamie Darby and said: “They did a great job at adapting to the change of formation.

"Late on in the game, they changed formation and we handled that really well.

“The challenge now is to go on from this and win our games in hand and if we can do that we should be up there.”

Old Bolts face Little Lever on Saturday looking to maintain their good form.