REWARDED John Coleman believes his Accrington Stanley men are reaping the dividends of their football philosophy as they continued their remarkable climb away from trouble thanks to Saturday’s win over Exeter City.

Coleman orders his men to play the game in the right way and a third win in four games saw Stanley impress with their toppling of the promotion hopefuls.

And he said: “We are not safe yet, but we are building on our gap and need to carry on with the good work.

“I don’t think we are playing different to earlier in the season but now we are getting the breaks that you need to win football games.

“If you are in a run where you are playing badly and still winning, you will start to lose.

"But if you are playing well and losing you will start to win sooner or later and that’s what we have done.

“And if you are playing well you don’t change anything despite that some people may say.”

The day didn’t get off to the best of starts for Stanley as Exeter surged forward from the kick-off and scored inside five minutes.

“I was disappointed with their goal and our start,“ added Coleman.

“Exeter are a very good side and will go and win a good few more games this season I am sure. But we started slowly and they could have been two up before they scored.

“I thought it was going to be a long afternoon but then we started to play and kept them in their half.

“We conceded badly but from that point we defended well an Exeter used four top-class strikers against us but couldn’t get another goal and we have to be pleased with that.”