By Dan Harrison

Kevin MacDonald hailed the spirit of his all-conquering reserve side after their play-off final win and told them to "savour the moment".

The coach was particularly pleased with the togetherness of the players and revealed they are always delighted by each other's individual successes.

He told AVTV: "I'm ecstatic about the lads' hard work throughout the year. I've always felt that we were a decent side over the last two years and this is the final thing for these lads.

"They've been together for a couple of years and we've lost one or two or gained one or two. They enjoy working with each other but they enjoy each other's success. That's a real big thing.

"With Nathan getting in the first time they were delighted and when Marc and Barry getting in the first team they were ecstatic.

"They have to enjoy these things, savour it and say 'I want more of that'."

Sunderland's equaliser minutes after Nathan Delfouneso had given Villa a first-half lead made for a tense second period. But MacDonald remained confident in his team's goalscoring ability.

He added: "In the second-half we always looked like scoring a few goals. We'll probably look back on the video and see we had more chances that they did."