SATURDAY'S victory at Swansea City could be a defining result in the Shakers' season, according to manager Graham Barrow.

The Bury boss is hoping that the crucial win will instill confidence in a squad that he believes can go on to great things this season.

The manner in which they bounced back from conceding an early goal at the Vetch Field was highly encouraging, and Barrow reckons that once the team start believing in themselves the sky will be the limit.

"I hope that result convinces the players that they are a half decent side," he said.

"If they want to go out and achieve something they have that ability.

"I just feel, at the moment, that we are having to gee them up all the time and keep telling them how good they are.

"Sooner or later we are going to have to realise that we have a lot going for us, there is nothing to fear in this division.

"The consistency in our play has been there all season although our league position has been yo-yoing.

"But now we've got on the front foot and have started driving forward, we must maintain that."

Even though Saturday's margin was a convincing one, the performance wasn't the best according to Barrow, who knows his team have more in the tank.

"When we went behind so early I thought 'Oh God, here we go!' he said.

"I tried to calm the lads down because I thought we looked a bit nervous before the game, the first couple of minutes showed that.

"It was probably a blessing in disguise that they scored so early because it gave us plenty of time to recover.

"It's a strange one, we haven't played as well as we can in our last two games but picked up maximum points, maybe that's a good thing.

"I've no complaints because that's the way you want it to be but we did look steady at the back.

"Our three central defenders and Andy Marriott in goal gave us the base to go on and win the game.

"They kept a good strikeforce quiet and Colin Woodthorpe did especially well as he'd been struggling with a back injury.

Saturday's win was a third successive victory and the six points picked up from the last two league games have pushed the Shakers into the play-off zone.

"We tend to look at the points total rather than the league position and 28 is a good return so far," he added.

"December won't be an easy month but if we can pick up the lion's share of the points and progress in the cup we'll be in great shape for January.

"We've played all sorts of teams now, top, middle and bottom and we've seen nothing to frighten us."

With the big FA Cup second round tie at Northampton Town coming up on Saturday, Barrow will be hoping squad members don't pick up any untimely injuries from two reserve games this week.

Last night the second string were in action at the LFA's County Ground at Leyland taking on Bolton Wanderers in the Manchester Senior Cup, while tomorrow afternoon at Gigg Lane (2pm), Manchester United are the visitors for a Pontins Holidays League Division One West fixture.

Striker Graeme Jones was due to continue his injury rehabilitation with a run-out against Bolton last night, while skipper Dave Challinor could be involved against United tomorrow in a bid to sharpen him up for Saturday's trip to Sixfields.

"We had Northampton watched on Saturday and we'll see them tonight when they play Southend in the LDV Vans Trophy," he added.

"It's a one-off cup tie and we'll go there looking for a result.

"If you want to progress in the FA Cup you have to go to places like Northampton and succeed.

"The way we are playing at the moment we are confident."

l Shakers' youth team skipper Dave Buchanan has been called into the Northern Ireland Under-19 squad to take on Italy in Rome on December 15.