ANDY Whing heralded Solihull Moors 2-1 win at league leaders Rochdale as one of his best since taking charge of the club.
A brace from Conor Wilkinson put Moors in command before Kairo Mitchell scored a late goal for the home side at the Crown Oil Arena to set up a grandstand finish.
And Whing heaped praise on his players for coming through adversity after losing Matty Warburton to injury inside the first five minutes.
Whing said: “That’s probably one of my best wins at Solihull Moors since I’ve been here.
“Just in terms of the adversity, we had to shuffle the pack after a minute and they were top of the league, we dug in and worked our absolute socks off.
“The players grafted for one another and that’s my team, we have got quality.
“I’ll take being called a bald so-and-so and a clown a million times over for wins like that.
“We’ve got way too many players out, we’ve got our four main front players out at the moment.
“It’s something we’ve got to look at as we’re just getting too many injuries, we’re grafting and grinding to get results, it’s going to cost us at some point.
“We need these bodies back as quickly as possible.”
Rochdale started the brighter of the two teams as Alex Whitmore made a crucial clearance to keep out Sam Beckwith’s goalbound effort.
However, Moors broke the deadlock on 26 minutes when Wilkinson dispossessed Harvey Gilmour on the edge of the Rochdale penalty area and curled a shot past David Robson.
The visitors almost doubled their lead with a superb team move moments later as Wilkinson and Olly Tipton combined to release Bradley Stevenson who saw his effort saved by Robson when one-on-one.
And Moors eventually found a second goal on 59 minutes when Wilkinson forced his way between two defenders and placed a cool finish beyond Robson from the edge of the penalty area after Rochdale failed to deal with a long ball.
Moors goalkeeper Laurie Walker then produced a smart save to deny Tobi Adebayo-Rowling from the right-hand side of the penalty area.
However, Rochdale halved the deficit on 86 minutes as Mitchell squeezed a shot past Walker from six-yards out.
And Walker made a superb reaction save to preserve the points after Aaron Henry’s effort from distance took a big deflection and forced the Moors stopper to change direction mid-dive.
Solihull are next in action against Southend United on Saturday, September 21 with kick-off at 3pm at Damson Park.
