NEILSTON co-manager Martin Campbell hailed his side for producing one of their best displays of the season to defeat Larkhall and put themselves on the brink of safety.

The Farmer’s Boys were all at sea in the opening five minutes against title-chasing Larkhall Thistle and were two down in the blink of an eye at Brig O’Lea on Saturday.

Campbell admitted he feared his players could’ve been on to a hiding at that stage, but they battled back to record a 3-2 win which puts them within touching distance of safety. A draw at Bellshill Athletic on Saturday will secure their place in the Central District First Division next season.

Campbell praised his side’s resilience for coming back when they looked dead and buried.

He said: “We feared the worst at the start, we were caught sleeping a bit. It looked like we were up against it. It’s an unbelievable effort from the players to get themselves back into the game.

“We were very comfortable in the second half. It was a great performance. It was probably up there with the best performances in our time at the club.

“The players’ desire to recover in games when they are down is fantastic.”

Neilston have played the fewest games in the division, they have seven games to play while most of their rivals only have two or three.

Campbell and John Paul Dow’s men can still finish as high as fourth in the table. And Campbell hopes that when the pressure of relegation is lifted, the team can express themselves and put in some eye-catching performances during the run-in.

He added: “Hopefully we can confirm we’ll avoid relegation at the first possible opportunity, then we can start to look up the table because we still have a lot of games. Sometimes when the pressure is off you see players relax a bit and be a bit more comfortable on the ball. If we get a result on Saturday we might see players really coming into their own and enjoying themselves.”