The result didn't surprise me, what did surprise me was that we played so well on a very wet pitch. I told the players not to over-do the football and, to be honest, they didn't really follow my instructions.

But they obviously decided the surface wasn't that bad when they got out there. I must admit, it is probably the most relaxed I've been during a game because we were in total control throughout.

The key to the result was that we won the midfield battle. If you can control the midfield you can dictate the game and that is exactly what we did on Saturday.

In the first five or 10 minutes their formation caused us a few problems because they had a man playing off the front two. But I told Wes (Simpson) to pick him up and he did a good job.

On Saturday not one of our players lost a personal battle. Kettering are top of the league on merit but on Saturday they didn't look good because we didn't let them. Any neutral watching the game would have thought we were the team challenging for the title.

As for the sending-off, their player was an idiot - we were better than them with 11 versus 11, so it was a stroll when they were reduced to 10 men.

There are not many games in which you get into a position where you are thoroughly in control but that happened on Saturday.

In the end we were over-elaborating a little but I can allow the players that luxury when they run the opposition into the ground in such a way.

Mark Gardiner, Northwich manager

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