Stephen Baxter hailed his Crusaders players as they crawled out of their sick beds to pick up a deserved win over top six rivals Coleraine.
A goal in either half from Paul Heatley and Adam Lecky ended the Bannsiders 14-game unbeaten run in the league, with the Crues ironically the last team to beat Oran Kearney's men way back on November 8th.
Their victory was made even more special for Baxter, who revealed 12 players missed training on Thursday night after a flu virus hit the camp.
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"It was an amazing performance by us especially given we had so many missing from training on Thursday night," he said.
"We didn't know if we would get a football team out on this pitch today.
"We had boys playing who didn't manage to get out of their beds until late last night.
"We didn't know what we were going to get today or if players were going to last, but my word they stepped up to the plate and gave everything they had for this football club.
"You just have to admire that, it's character. We said no excuses and to get over the white line and give everything they had because fans don't want to hear about colds and flu, they want to see their team perform.
"The players gave them an absolutely fabulous performance today.
"I'm proud of every single player, I thought they gave us more than what you would expect.
"You have to be pleased, it was a big performance and result against probably the in-form team in the country right now.
"They have been on a superb run, very good, very solid and they create loads of chances, but they weren't in behind us once today.
"We dealt with every single ball which was pleasing."
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