MANAGER Gary Hackett praised his "determined" Glassboys after they extended their unbeaten league run to 13 games.

Stourbridge beat Banbury 2-0 at the War Memorial Ground last Saturday thanks to goals from Luke Benbow and Gregg Mills.

The result also saw Stour extend their lead at the top of Southern League Central to four points after second-placed Kettering drew with Coalville.

The Glassboys have now played just two matches more than their rivals after Kettering lost the first of their three games in hand against Biggleswade on Tuesday night.

Hackett praised his team's spirit after the Banbury victory and highlighted his players' determination to succeed this season.

He said: "We're in the middle of a really good spell at the moment and confidence is high at the club.

"The atmosphere in the group is very good but we also have some very determined individuals who want to succeed.

"They'll moan at each at times but they'll do it for the right reasons and they all understand that."

On the Banbury win, he added: "They have some very talented individuals who can really change games and we did have to defend well at times against them, especially with the people we had missing.

"We lost Aaron Hayden after his loan spell and Paul McCone has had an illness, so we had to switch things around.

"But everyone did really well and then Luke Benbow and Greg Mills gave us that extra bit of quality we needed.

"You do have to worry about yourself but it was a nice bonus that we extended our lead over Kettering.

"We'll just keep applying the pressure and see where it takes us.

"There is a lot of points still to be played for and a long way still to go."

"We now need to make sure we don't take Hitchin lightly this weekend just because they're down at the bottom end of the table. This league shows every week that if you're not on your mettle then you can get beaten.

"We need to make sure we approach it the same as we have done in recent weeks."

Hackett boosted his options last week with the capture of attacking midfielder Bilal Yafai.

The 22-year old joins after featuring for Wolverhampton Sporting Community earlier this season.

Hackett is still looking to add to the group if the right man can be found.

"We do want to add to the squad but we are concious of making sure we improve it," he added. "It's easy to just add extra numbers but it's that quality that we want."

McCone could feature this weekend and goalkeeper James Wren will be assessed in training this week. Winger Callum Powell remains sidelined.