Steve Chettle hopes Notts County’s 4-2 win against Doncaster Rovers in the Checkatrade Trophy provides a boost ahead of Saturday’s big game against Cheltenham.
Wednesday night's victory at Meadow Lane saw the Magpies reach the knockout stages of the tournament with Kristian Dennis netting a hat-trick.
And Chettle feels the result will be a springboard ahead of a six-pointer with the Robins when Notts return to league action on Saturday.
“Hopefully tonight kick-starts us ahead of Cheltenham,” he said.
“It was important for us to break the habit of losing games and look to build momentum.
“We need to win football matches and it was a big result tonight because we wanted to progress to the next round, so it’s very pleasing to have done that.”
The caretaker boss was delighted to see Dennis get amongst the goals for the first time since August.
“He’s worked as hard as he ever has tonight and got his rewards by taking home the match ball,” explained Chettle.
“Hopefully he builds on this now because he’s come to the club with a great goalscoring record which we want him to continue.
“He scored tons of goal in non-league and was leading scorer for Chesterfield last year so hopefully we see him kick on now.”
Chettle feels the effort of the players was key to sealing qualification from the group stage.
He said: “Some of these boys haven’t played too much this season but put a massive shift in tonight and will be hurting tomorrow.
“The result was always going to be the biggest thing tonight but to see the amount of effort they put in was particularly pleasing as well.
“Getting minutes in the tank for these boys was important because we were concerned that some of them might not get through. We’re delighted that they all have.”