Renfrew boss Jimmy Quigley hailed the never-say-die attitude of his players after they took another giant step towards title glory.
The New Western Park team fell behind against Craigmark Burntonians on Friday night but battled back in the final 20 minutes to clinch a 2-1 victory and remain seven points clear at the top of the Second Division.
Liam Caddis had put the visitors ahead from the penalty spot but substitute James MacLennan scored on his return to action to level things up before Ciaran Diver netted for the ninth game in a row as he reacted quickest to fire home on the rebound after his penalty had been saved.
That meant back-to-back wins over the Ayrshire side for Renfrew, who had recorded a 2-0 victory against the same opponents away from home the previous week.
Quigley told Gazette Sport: “It was a great victory and a really hard-fought game. We showed great character to come back and win it in the end.
“The guys always go to the final whistle.
“Craigmark are a really good team and changed their set-up after we won 2-0 down there. They went to a 4-5-1 and were hard to break down but we had the better of the chances in the first half before we lost a penalty.
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"For about 20 minutes of the second half, they were the better team and then fell out of it.
“We should have had two stonewall penalties that were denied by the referee and then the one that he did give us was never a penalty, it was about three yards outside the box, but you take those things.
“The substitutes made a great impact. That’s what I brought James back in for and Dom Innes was fantastic when he came on and had a hand in both of the goals but I’m not taking any credit for the changes.
"All of the boys have been working hard and are always ready.”
Renfrew host Muirkirk this Saturday and, despite having a potentially season-defining game against Maybole the following weekend, Quigley insists his players can’t take their eye off the task at hand.
He added: “We’ll just keep taking it one game at a time. As long as win every game, we don’t need to look down the way.
"The chasing pack are keeping it exciting. Maybole are on the same run of form as ourselves, so it will be a massive game but that doesn’t matter if we don’t take care of Muirkirk first.”
Kick-off on Saturday is at 2pm.
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