Dave Jones revealed: "You'd never think Whitts had scored a hat-trick - he's sitting in the dressing room with a cup of tea, totally laid back.

"We're taking bets on when he asks us to sign the ball. As soon as we were off the field, Chops was straight up to him with the ball, but Whitts didn't seem to want to know!

"Whitts deserved his hat-trick - they were quality goals. Peter has this reputation of being lazy, but the stats show he is up there with the top runners at the club.

"Sometimes people are deceived by his demeanour - but he didn't look lazy today.

"It was fitting that his hat-trick came with the fourth goal. You'll go to a lot of grounds this season and not see better than that."

But manager Jones was unhappy with his side's defensive display, which saw them surrender the lead twice during the first half.

"Our defending was poor. We need to work on certain things. We allowed them back in and gave them hope. To let them back in at 2-1 was bad on our part. Every time we got our nose in front, we did something stupid. But the second half was all about us taking our chances. I knew that as long as we didn't defend in the second half like we did in the first, we'd be OK.

"Strong defence and clean sheets have been our strengths lately, but they made all their mistakes in one game.

"Going into the second half at 2-2, it was difficult for either side to get a foothold. Then we went and switched off after the fourth. At 4-2, our players thought the game was won.
"Our fourth seemed to knock the stuffing out of the opposition, and although they got one back, on balance we deserved the win."