BOSS Mark Yates has praised his troops for playing to their strengths to get past a decent Vauxhall Motors outfit at Aggborough today.

The 3-1 success came as a great relief to all throughout Aggborough as a decent end to what's been a fairly rotten month.

Speaking to the official website after this afternoon's game, Yates admitted that cooler heads prevailed in the second half, with Harriers forced to raise their game after Vauxhall had taken the lead in the first period.

"We needed to take more care with our final pass and just increase the tempo and take a bit more responsibility," he told harriers.co.uk.

"And to be fair to the players, I think they did that in the second half and we played at a much higher tempo and played to our strengths.

"The movement from the front-two was decent and we created plenty of chances, we scored three and could have had more."

The youngsters caught the eye today with the likes of Paul Bignot, Matthew Barnes-Homer and Brian Smikle all getting 90 minutes under their belt and looking good.

But after being heavily involved in one goal and going on to score the other, midfielder Michael McGrath drew some praise from the Harriers' chief.

"Michael has undoubted ability, we know that," he added.

"We have got to work at getting the best out of Michael, week in and week out.

"He's a good player and he can beat people - when he plays like he did his quality is very good and he did what we knew he could do.

"The players have all worked hard and that's what enabled us to win the game."

With £10,000 in the coffers for today's work and a confidence-boosting win after some flagging performances and results - there's plenty to build on for November, then.

But, the First Round of the FA Cup looms large just ten days into the month when Harriers travel to Ryman League, Division One North side Ware in the First Round.

Of the draw, Yates said: "We've got a chance to go down to Ware in two weeks' time and hopefully progress.

"They've had a good result today, nobody is going to make anything easy for us and we've got to be prepared.

"We'll treat them with respect but we know if we perform we can get through.

"We may have one or two players back before then and hopefully we'll be okay."

Meanwhile, Harriers return to Blue Square Premier action next weekend when they travel to a relentless Burton Albion. Ticket and Travel news will appear on harriers.co.uk tomorrow.