'Game plan worked a treat,' says Halifax boss Pete Wild after win against Chesterfield

Jeff King gave the Shaymen an early lead on eight minutes when his soft shot from the edge of the area went through a crowd of bodies and found its way into the net.

And the visitors doubled their lead 20 minutes later when Jake Hyde glanced in King’s cross from close-range.

Hyde almost slid in a third after the break and Halifax held on for the points despite Kairo Mitchell pulling one back with 20 minutes to go.

The win moves Wild’s men up to fifth, four points clear of Chesterfield, but they have played one game more.

"I thought first-half we were excellent, we decided to let them have the first pass,” Wild said.

"I have watched teams go up against them, they want to play through you centrally and I did not want that so we just let them have the first pass and then we tried to pick them off from there, and it worked a treat first-half.

"We thought our game plan worked, we picked them off, scored two and we could have had another one, so we were really pleased with that.

"We knew they would come after us second-half and they would try and load us up, hit the big diagonal into the number two, and we made it nervy, a little mistake, but such is life.

"I always felt if they were going to play longer passes into the box they were not going to hurt us, they were going to hurt us if they tried to be a little bit intricate and we cut off those areas so they could not do that.”

Mitchell’s first goal for the Spireites halved the deficit and the Blues almost equalised in stoppage time through Fraser Kerr.

"We've rode the storm second-half but that's the game plan and we were pleased with how it worked,” Wild added.

"I watched Bromley play against them on Saturday and they were compact, they could not play through them, they had to try and play round them.

"I'm really pleased with how the game plan went tonight."