BRYAN HUGHES believes Shaun Pearson's reaction to scoring his goal against Braintree shows just how much winning promotion means to the Wrexham players.

The Reds went into the game on the back of four defeats in their last five outings but a 3-1 win over the relegated Iron gave the push for a top-seven finish a boost.

There was no shortage of passion when Pearson celebrated the second goal and Hughes, whose side sit fifth in the National League with four games to go, praised the character of his players ahead of today's clash at Barnet.

"I saw glimpses of the characters coming through on Saturday that we had when I first came in here," said Hughes.

"That passion and pride; when Shaun scored his goal you could see how much it meant to him.

"People have been questioning us as a team over the last few weeks and rightly so, our results haven't been good enough.

"But like I've said to the lads, we all believe in each other within this group. We just haven't performed it over the last few weeks and shown our capabilities.

"But when you see your club captain react to a goal the way he did, it just shows how much it does mean to these players and there was elements of them characters that came back out on Saturday.

"Hopefully they are the building blocks now to take us forward."