Boss Rob Smith hailed his “horrible outfit” after AFC Telford United’s Boxing Day stalemate at Tamworth, and insisted: “There’s exciting times ahead.”

The Bucks drew 0-0 at The Lamb yesterday, despite creating a number of chances to win the game against their full-time opponents.

And Smith was delighted with the application from his side, having grown frustrated by some of their defensive lapses in recent Blue Square North fixtures.

“I’ve said that we need to get back to being a strong unit with five at the back and three in the middle of the park,” he said. “I wanted to go to Tamworth and give a performance that shows what we’re all about, because teams have been scoring too easily against us.

“We nearly won it, but it was a really strong promotion-type performance in my eyes. Tamworth train four days a week and we don’t, but in the second half they were faltering like mad and we weren’t. That’s a pleasure to see.

“I was proud of the squad and that’s what we’re all about – a strong, horrible outfit if you want! There’s exciting times ahead, and if we can stick in the play-off positions then who knows.”

Smith had hoped to have loan striker Michael Husbands available yesterday, but the Macclesfield man ruled himself out.

He is likely to be in the squad for the trip to Worcester on Saturday, further boosting Smith’s attacking options,

Luke Reynolds and Lee Moore got the nod to start yesterday – but leading scorer Matty Lewis, Justin Marsden and Gary Birch are all also in contention.

“People say I should be picking the two strikers in form, but no-one is excelling at the moment and it’s a case of picking the two who can do the job on the day,” added Smith.

“Although we didn’t score yesterday I thought the two who played caused them problems and did the job.”