STUART Wedge has hailed his Himley side’s “character, attitude and resolve” after another huge win.

The Stourbridge Road outfit made it back-to-back wins with a 71-run success at reigning champions Shrewsbury.

And after an indifferent period of form which threatened to derail their title bid, Wedge’s side are once again breathing down the necks of Birmingham League leaders Barnt Green.

They trail by only nine points going into this weekend’s home game with Leamington Spa and Wedge admits confidence is now sky high.

He said: “I could not have asked for better on Saturday, it was a great performance and we are right back in it.

“We always said it would only take one set of results to turn things around and we have gone from 28 points back to just nine behind.

“The players have shown great character, attitude and resolve to pick themselves up after a bad run and put in the kind of performances we all know they are capable of.

“Leamington will not be an easy game by any stretch of the imagination but if we show the same kind of application we have the last two weeks we should give ourselves every chance.”

Things went right from the word go for Himley on Saturday, not least because theirs was the only game in the top flight unaffected by the weather.

After winning the toss, Wedge chose to bat and opening pair of Chris Tranter and Greg Wright successfully saw off the new ball. Indian star Wasim Jaffer (65) and Ben Smith (35) then added a century stand for the third wicket, though a sudden collapse saw the visitors fall from 156-2 to 188 all out.

That was only the cue for an excellent all-round bowling performance which saw the hosts skittled out for 113.

Dan Smith was the pick of Himley’s bowlers, taking 4-38 but as his skipper later revealed, things could have turned out very different.

Wedge added: “I was actually going to take Dan off before he took his first wicket as they made a quick start and we were defending a relatively small total.

“But I decided to give him another over and that was that!

“I suppose it just goes to show the fine lines the game can run on some times.”