Cumbernauld Colts boss James Orr heaped praise on stand-in captain Sean Winter for inspiring the side to a shock win over East Kilbride.
The club's regular skipper Stephen O'Neill missed the game through non-Covid related illness and ex-Kilby man Winter was handed the armband against his former side.
And the winger didn't disappoint as he sparked a shock win for Colts, scoring from the penalty spot in the first half before Daniel Hatfield's second half strike put the result beyond doubt.
It ended a run of nine games without victory for Colts and inflicted a third defeat in nine for title hopefuls East Kilbride, who finished the game with 10 men after Blair Malcolm's late dismissal.
But after a spirited 1-0 defeat to Spartans in midweek, Orr reckoned the win was coming as he hailed Winter for his impact on the club since his summer arrival.
The Colts gaffer, who has a number of ex-EK men in his squad including Graeme Holmes, Dom McLaren and coach David Proctor, said: "I asked Sean to come in this summer and help our young boys as well.
"I wasn't sure if we were going to get him to be honest, but, to be fair to him, he jumped at the chance.
"From day one he's been outstanding; he's great in the dressing room; he works so hard for the team; he's a humble guy.
"Today we made him captain and I asked him to show everything he's been doing in the dressing room on the park, and I thought he did a great job.
"If anybody was going to step up and put that penalty away, it was Sean.
"His effort and workrate throughout the game was outstanding.
"Having Graeme Holmes in the team as well is great.
"I think Graeme plays with his slippers on. I've never seen a footballer player like him, he was outstanding as well.
"They were guys coming back to a place that they love and if it gave them an extra wee jag for the game, then great.
"But I think whoever it was today, we'd have got the same performance.
"I thought we were unlucky against Spartans and a draw would have been a fair result there.
"But coming here we asked the guys to back each other up, be hard to beat and I thought we were excellent against an excellent team.
"I'm really proud of them."
Colts thoroughly deserved their victory and it would have been a more handsome victory, but for the heroics of Kilby keeper Conor Brennan.
The Northern Irishman pulled off two instinctive saves to keep EK in the contest, but Colts still proved too strong.
Orr added: "It would have been really nice to get more goals, but their keeper was outstanding.
"Two of his saves were ridiculous.
"One of them was from Danny [Hatfield] in one of his first games for us.
"He's come in at 18 from our under-19s and been outstanding.
"Over the period of the last eight games we've started well, let poor goals in and we've let ourselves down the way we've defended.
"It's very easy to give up when that happens, but what I'm proud of is that the lads haven't done that.
"There's been a huge effort at training and, because of that, I could see that things would come good.
"We were crying out for a win and this gives us that bit of confidence."
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