Lincoln head coach Michael Skubala praised his side’s intensity as they secured an emphatic 5-1 victory over promotion-chasing Barnsley at Oakwell.
Joe Taylor opened the scoring before Jack Moylan (2), Daniel Mandriou and Jovon Makama added second-half goals.
Adam Phillips pulled one back for the hosts, but they could not push for a comeback.
Skubala said: “We started the game really well; we started the game really bright. Our press was a little bit different to try and deal with Barnsley’s way of playing.
“I thought second half we were bang on.
“What pleased me today was, the whole team was connected. We were really good out of possession, we were aggressive when we needed to be aggressive, we didn’t give second balls up.
“Our energy and intensity was a little bit too much for them.”
On the performance of Mandriou, Skubala said: “Daniel Mandriou is a good player. We’ve had to play him a little bit lower, but again we trust him with what to do.
“Another player that’s been out the team for a bit, not getting the minutes he wants.
“He came on today and I thought he did a brilliant job.”
On the goals his side scored, Skubala said: “Good goals, I’m really pleased with all the goals. All the goals were good finishes.
“What’s really pleasing is we took our chances. We feel like sometimes we’re getting into the final third and we just need a bit more quality.
“But today I thought they showed the quality in the final third which is brilliant.”
Barnsley head coach Neill Collins admitted it was a poor performance from his team.
He said: “It probably doesn’t take rocket science to work out that the majority, if not all of our team, were way below the standards they’ve set.
“I should stress that the players have been fantastic this season, they’ve taken a lot of plaudits and rightfully so.
“But today there were just so many that fell below the levels and made individual, basic errors that were capitalised on by a very good side, who are in a very good moment.
“The scoreline was a combination of things and the biggest one just being that we had too many players being way below par.
“When you make mistakes and you get punished by goals then you take it out of your hands.
“We started poorly, went behind. But then from that point on we looked ourselves, looked like we were getting into great positions.
“But you just can’t legislate when you’re already 1-0 down to make the mistakes that we did for the second and third goal.
“There’s no question that we made it an awful lot easier for them and we don’t normally make it easy for teams.”
