TONY Sullivan said the points, rather than his team’s performance, was what mattered after a Boxing Day defeat of Nantwich.

Witton, boosted by goals from Jamie Rainford either side of the interval following Danny Andrews’ opener, climbed from the Premier Division drop zone following a 3-0 win against their neighbours.

Albion have now won four of their past seven league matches.

“There isn’t extra comfort from being better than our opponents if we don’t beat them,” said Sullivan.

“In the end, it was a great afternoon’s work for us.

“They have some good footballers, but we out-battled them.

“We had the bit between our teeth and deserved the points – come the end of the season this might be a day we look back on when a win really helped us.”

If they avoid defeat against Rushall Olympic on Sunday, providing the match goes ahead, then Witton will start 2015 outside of the table’s bottom four.

That will be in part due to in-form Rainford’s haul of five goals from four league matches played this month.

Sullivan said: “At half-time I said Jamie had shown why he has the ability to be one of the best strikers at this level.

“He’d missed a one-on-one with the keeper, then produced the finish he did to put us 2-0 ahead.

“He didn’t let what had happened earlier weigh on his mind.

“I won’t take the credit for that, because [assistant manager] Kevin Hodgson should.

“He persuaded me to give Jamie a chance, and he’s not let us down.

“His was one of a number of good individual performances, but collectively we’re turning into a team that’s entertaining while being hard to beat.

“We need to keep more clean sheets, we know that, but after getting our noses in front I felt we settled quickly and controlled the game.”

To read a report on today's game, click here: http://bit.ly/1CYArBD