YEARS ago I saw a remarkable advert on American TV for cough mixture.

They had a folksy name to give the impression of good old fashioned authenticity – it was something like “Uncle Abner’s Soothing Throat and Chest Linctus” – but it was the slogan at the end of the advert which caught my attention.

After 30 seconds of people transforming from phlegm-ridden suffers to satisfied customers, the message flashed up: “It tastes awful, and it works.”

And why am I remembering this now? Because it’s the perfect convoluted summary of our performance at Sutton!

“Awful” is a bit strong, actually. However, we were in desperate need of a win, and I don’t think anybody who watched the game would argue that we were anywhere near our fluent best.

That didn’t matter though. We won, and it was a result we needed desperately. Never mind the quality, feel the points!

Our struggles against direct, in-your-face opponents away from home had become a concern. When we returned to the STóK Cae Ras and suffered a rare defeat to Bradford, even though the performance was much improved and we really ought to have won, there was widespread concern.

We needed to get back on track quickly, before our promotion campaign took a serious hit.

That’s why the win was more important than the performance on Tuesday.

We suffered for that win, and had to rely on Arthur Okonkwo at times. There’s nothing wrong with that though, as long as you get the result at the end.

When Denis Smith was manager he didn’t enjoy the implication that his goalkeeper had bailed us out, and would always answer that line of inquiry with a simple “that’s why I bought him – it’s his job.”

Apart from the three points, hopefully the win will help to restore the confidence of a side which, unusually, was beginning to look like it felt a bit down on its luck.

The spirit which we showed when we were defending the lead, and then fought back to claim a late winner, was terrific.

The back three deserve terrific praise for the way they defended the penalty area, sometimes in a real backs-to-the wall effort.

We even had a memorable redemption story: how “Welcome to Wrexham” somehow manage to cram all these storylines into our matches is beyond me!

Will Boyle’s return from a red card at Newport, which you could argue sparked this mini-slump, was magnificent.

Sure, he scored, but more importantly he defended heroically in the second half.

I wasn’t the only person who was surprised to see his name when the team was released, but Phil Parkinson is a wise head, and he’s seen how Boyle has trained since that set-back, knows his personality, and has already managed Andy Cannon’s triumphant resurgence after his dismissal at Crawley.

Throwing Boyle straight into the deep end was clearly the best thing for him, and a masterstroke to boot.

Bringing Max Cleworth back into the side was a smart move too. He was impressive in his recent run in the team, and unlucky to lose his place.

Parkinson was smart to get him back into the side so quickly, as he will need to rotate his side through a tough upcoming run of fixtures, and it’s important to send Cleworth the message that he isn’t going to go back down the pecking order as injured centre backs return.

Saturday’s massive match-up with Notts County looms large, and Parkinson has some decisions to make following Tuesday’s win.

Does he stick with players who got him a much-needed result or turn back to familiar faces, who enjoyed recent success against The Magpies?

It’s nice that, once again, he has a selection headache because he has a number of options, rather than a problem to solve.

A game against Notts County doesn’t need to be sold to either set of supporters. Our titanic struggle for the National League title last season has bonded the two clubs in a profound, if unexpected, manner.

We set a national record for the most points won in a season, and we had to as The Magpies also smashed the previous mark in pursuit of us.

The clash between the two sides at the end of last season will go down as one of the true classics of our history, with Ben Foster’s remarkable last-gasp penalty save from Cedwyn Scott already an iconic moment.

There were other heroes that day though: Paul Mullin and Jacob Mendy scored to overturn a half time deficit, and when County equalised with a quarter of an hour left, we swiftly went up the other end and got a winner through Elliot Lee.

Our 2-0 win at Meadow Lane earlier in the season means we go into this game with the upper hand in recent clashes, but actually we’ve only won three of the last nine games in this fixture, the other win coming when James Jones struck a last minute winner in a FA Trophy quarter final in 2022.