Bolton Wanderers won 3-0 this afternoon against Gillingham as they returned to winning ways in League One to narrow the gap slightly to the play-off places.
Wanderers took the lead in the first half thanks to a brilliant strike from Aaron Morley for his first goal as a Bolton player.
The Gills went down to 10 men midway through the second half when Daniel Phillips was shown a second yellow card.
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And Wanderers capitalised with the extra man with goals from Declan John and Jon Dadi Bodvarsson before full-time in a scoreline where Bolton could have won by a much greater margin.
The win sees them stay 11th in the League One table but narrow the gap to the top six to seven points with 10 games of the campaign still to go.
The three points were picked up without vice-captain Gethin Jones, who is currently not being considered for selection due to being on compassionate leave following the death of his mother Karen.
Karen, 56, passed away last weekend after losing her battle with motor neurone disease (MND) after being diagnosed last summer with the illness, for which there is currently not a cure.
A much-loved former midwife, she leaves behind Bolton vice-captain and sons Gethin and Dylan, daughter Ela and husband Gareth.
Ian Evatt spoke after the win and said the past few weeks have been a 'huge rollercoaster of emotions' and he dedicated the three points to his vice-captain.
He said: "Gethin and his family are a huge part of this football club and this is a band of brothers and when one of us is upset and hurting, we all are and we’ve all built relationships with that family because of what we did earlier on in the season.
"We feel for them and I asked the players today ‘there’s nothing that can ever change Gethin’s mood or anything like that for his family but the one thing that we can do today is put a smile on his face because I’m sure he’ll be looking at our result’.
"Hopefully that’s done that for him. We’re all here for him and we’re all supporting him as best we can.”
After full-time at Priestfield, captain Ricardo Santos held aloft a Bolton shirt with the Jones surname on the back of it to pay tribute to their absent vice-captain, Karen and the family.
And Jones certainly recognised this as he tweeted: "Great result boys, thank you."
Wanderers are next in action on Tuesday evening at home to Morecambe, but Bolton will give Jones all the time he needs before he returns to the team after his mother's passing.
