PICERKING TOWN boss Tony Hackworth said his players "set the standard" in their victory over Heanor Town - now he is challenging them to maintain that for the rest of the Northern Counties East League premier division campaign.

Billy Logan's driven free kick after six minutes brought a 1-0 win over a side who were challenging for promotion in the early part of the campaign and it made it three maximum point hauls in a row for the rejuvenated Recreation Ground outfit.

But Hackworth is not merely contest with the upturn in form. Hailing the "best performance since I have been at the club", he wants more wins as the Pikes start to climb up the table.

"Things are going really well and I was absolutely delighted (on Saturday)," he said. "They are a big physical side. They are up there because they know how to win games.

"I set the team up to try and be hard to break down. We got the early goal through Billy Logan but it wasn't even a case of hanging on. We were restricting them to long efforts and it paid off.

"Consistency now is a massive thing. It is why we are sat in 11th in the table. It's been a massive factor in our season and it's something we need to improve upon. We have to take every game as it comes and we have got some big matches coming up.

"It has been nice to get three wins but I want to make it four and five. I will not be getting less than 100 per cent effort from the lads. When we were playing under Mitch (Cook), there was a lot of doom and gloom and a lot of unhappy lads. I just want them to express themselves and work hard for each other."

Pikes keeper Toby Wells was called into action after just four minutes against Heanor - making a fine save to prevent Kieran Wells from opening the scoring after a good cross from the right by Greg Marriott.

It proved a costly miss. Two minutes later, Chris Batchelor was brought down two yards outside the penalty area and Logan hit his free-kick low, through the defensive wall, and into the bottom corner with visiting goalkeeper Ian Deakin stranded.

Heanor hit back hard in a bid to get level. Wells was a constant threat and Nathan Benger hit the bar after quarter of an hour. Benger and Kieran Debrouwer went close before Niall Tilsley produced a timely tackle to stop Kieran Wells netting an equaliser.

When Heanor spurned two good chances after the break to level, and Kieran Wells was substituted close to the hour mark, Pickering stepped up once again. Logan put an effort wide on 71 minutes and was foiled, a minute before the end, by a brilliant Deakin save.

In between, Daniel Booth's cross from the left beat Wells in the Pickering goal but Batchelor headed off the line.

PICKERING: Wells, Belt, Batchelor, Patterson (Banks 75), Tilsley, Aziz, Hawkes (Chamberlain 89), Taylor, Logan, Ramm, and Calvert (Danby 66). Substitutes not used: Fish and Outerbridge.

Near neighbours Bridlington are next up for Pickering on Saturday (kick off 3pm) at Mill Lane and Hackworth is pleased with his emerging squad - both the players he is getting back into action and the numbers who are scoring goals.

He added: "We have had Wayne Aziz struggling with a back injury and he is playing again. Billy Logan has scored some vital goals for us. If you look at the top teams, they have all go strikers who are scoring 20-odd goals. It's good that other members of the team can contribute.

"We are preparing for a massive game against Bridlington. A lot of their lads know ours and they are going to be massively up for it. We have now set the standard against Heanor. We need to take that into the weekend."