Adrian Pennock has hailed his Gillingham players as being “heroic” after their 2-1 win at Bury on Saturday.

Goals from Bradley Dack and Cody McDonald were the difference on the day as The Gills picked up their first away win under Pennock and in 2017.

Having seen his side pull off a vital win, Pennock had nothing but praise for his side:

“I want to praise everybody today – this one was all about the squad. They defended brilliantly as a team, they were all heroic. i’m very, very proud of them.”

“Our fingers and toes were crossed for the final 10 minutes but you can’t take anything away from the players. They executed the game plan brilliantly.”

“We came in on Thursday and Friday and did some video analysis work on Bury, as well as working on our tactics and shape in training, and I thought we throughly deserved the win. These are three massive points for us.”

“Before today (Saturday) we had 11 cup finals left, that’s now 10. Bury are a good side, they’ve won three on the spin since Lee [Clark] came in as manager, and they’ve got some good players here. I’m chuffed for the fans, too. They turned up in numbers and kept on singing. That win was great for them.”

Mitchell Dickenson came on late on in the first half to make his league debut following an injury to Ryan Jackson and Pennock was full of praise for the young defender:

“We’ve been working a lot with Mitch, doing a lot of one-on-ones with him, because we never know when he’ll need to be called upon.”

“He deserved to come in and I thought he was outstanding. He was like a seasoned pro; he was talking to his team-mates and cleared his lines when he had to.”

“He did the basics right and he didn’t look out of place. That can only be good for the future of the football club.”

Meanwhile, Scott Wagstaff picked up ligament damage in his knee during training last week, but Pennock is hoping he will be available soon:

“Hopefully that’ll settle down and he’ll be OK for next weekend [against Scunthorpe United]. Ryan Jackson felt his groin and came off after 40 minutes or so; it’s a very heavy pitch here, so we’ll assess it tomorrow.”