"From what we'd seen of them when we played up at their place, we played quite an aggressive line-up, we went 4-3-3 and pressed them across the top. That worked really, really well, they gave the ball away to our midfield a lot in the first half or were under pressure and kicked it out.
"For the first 40 minutes we had them under the pump. We only went into the break 1-0 up and I have to admit I was a little bit worried we would rue our missed opportunities. We hit the post and the crossbar and had three or four saved one-on-one by the keeper. Fortunately, we got away with it," Gibbs said.
He said the second half was more even and the job got harder for his team after a red card.
"One of their players lashed out off the ball, at our centre back, who turned around and shoved him in the chest, pushing him to the ground. The referee only saw the part where our centre back shoved him and produced a straight red card. I felt it was a little bit too harsh, I didn't think it was a red-card offence.
"I was really happy with how the boys responded after that, we rallied well. We changed the formation to make ourselves nice and defensively secure which we mostly achieved."
He said the result was "crucial". Ngongotahā now sit in 10th place, just one point out of the top eight and survival.
"It's massive because it's moved us off the bottom and moving in the direction we want to go, but I think it's continued our momentum too. Last week we were playing Takapuna, who are top of the table, and I was happy with the way we pushed them, you can sort of live with not getting the result because the performance was good.
"If you look at the last four or five performances there's a definite trend that we're right in the mix and I think the boys have shown themselves that they can compete with anyone in this league," he said.
Ngongotahā 2-1 Northland (HT: 1-0)
NGO: Harlem Simiona 30', Luke Barker 66'
NOR: Finn Diamond 68'
