Gethin Jones was in new territory when he connected with Jack Iredale’s cross to score Bolton’s second at MK Dons on Tuesday night.

The ball planted firmly past helpless keeper Jamie Cumming, it suddenly dawned on the Welsh defender that he had never celebrated a goal in front of supporters before.

“That was my first-ever headed goal,” he grinned. “I scored a few in League Two, didn’t I? But that was the first one with fans in the stand, so it went in the back of the net and I didn’t know what to do!

“I was made up it went in and to get three points was brilliant.

“It was one of the best headers I have ever scored. The lads were all saying they couldn’t believe how powerful the header was, and to be honest neither could I. “It is something we have worked on. In the last two years I have been here we haven’t scored that many set pieces but we have tried some different things – today Rico and MJ did the little running lane for me and George and if I hadn’t scored, he would have done. It was a great ball from Jack and I am made up it went in.

“We have got loads of different corners, wide free kicks. We got one against Charlton where we played the little short one, Dion Charles got in behind and George Johnston got a tap in, but they are things we have worked on so it is great when they come off.”

Jones admits he was concerned whether Wanderers were going to keep their fourth clean sheet of the season at MK.

“We were 2-0 up with 15 minutes to go and we started to get a bit sloppy and giving the ball away too much,” he said. “I know we want to play out but we need to look at ourselves because we haven’t had enough clean sheets recently and there have been a few sloppy goals. “We needed that clean sheet to give the boys at the back a bit of confidence.”

Wanderers moved into fifth spot and could climb a place higher on Saturday if they beat Peterborough and Sheffield Wednesday lose at home to Ipswich.

But Jones believes the Whites are not yet playing at close to their maximum – and that there is plenty of improvement ahead.

“We went in and we knew that we’d been sloppy at the end of that game,” he said.

“One or two times in the second half we gave away possession cheaply and then if you are playing against a confident side maybe the game goes to 2-1 and you have a nervy last 10 minutes.

“For our development we need to work on getting the ball in the back of the net again, killing teams off, and making it easier for ourselves, really.”