“If we’re going to be top of the league I’d rather it was in September, not in March,” he said.

Bamber was proud of his team’s performance, which was capped off with a 93rd minute winner from substitute Daniel Richman.

“It’s a great result, it was a good game, entertaining for the spectators and (we’re) happy to get three points,” he said.

“The fans are great, they’re like our 12th man sometimes, even when it was 2-2 they started getting behind us and gave us a bit of a lift, just to push on for that little bit more and get the win.”

Former Blackburn Rovers defender Andy Todd made his Armadale debut and was pleased with his first win.

“It’s always nice to win games no matter what level you’re at,” he said.

“Obviously we went 2-0 up and I think Cockburn were probably a better footballing team, but obviously we’ve dug deep to get a very good win against a decent team.”

Armadale gave away their two-goal lead in the space of six minutes, which Todd put down to the Cockerels’ strong attacking football.

“There was a decent bit of play by Cockburn, you’ve got to give them a bit of credit, they’ve got a very good system and they play to it very well, but we need to win games a little bit better when we’re 2-0 up,” he said.

“There’s a long way to go, we’ll take each game as it comes.”

Cockburn coach Scott Miller was disappointed about losing the game late on, but was proud of his team for fighting back from an early 2-0 deficit.

“It was great character,” Miller said.

“I think we tried to play our style, unfortunately when you give the opposition opportunities that they’re set up for, they were good enough to take them, so disappointed with that, but very proud of the boys.

“Every game is hard in the Premier League, we knew that coming in and it’s taken us a little bit longer to find our feet.”

“In Division One you can give chances up and get away with it, here you give chances up and they’re going to score.”

“There’s different ways to play football and Armadale know how they have to play to win games and they did it very well, so hands up to them.”

Goals from Raveshlan Kuppusamy and Mark Peers gave Armadale an early lead before two brilliant finishes from Jack Eades got Cockburn level.

The winning goal came after numerous missed chances from both sides in an end-to-end match in which Armadale were the better side, but the result could have gone either way.

Cockburn City 2 (Eades 28’, 33’)
Armadale 3 (Kuppusamy 19’, Peers 23’, Richman 90+3’)
Saturday 23rd March 2013
Dalmatinac Park, Cockburn
Kick -off: 7:00pm
Referee: David Bruce
Assistant referees: Phil Trinades and Joshua Nixon
Crowd: Appx 300

Cockburn City: 23. Dejan ALEKSIC (gk), 3. Kieron STALLARD, 4. Euen GRANT, 7. Mathew SALMON, 9. Eamon McNEILIS (18. Domenico DE FELICE 70’), 10. Paul LLOYD (6. Ian STACK 84’), 11. Devon GIBSON, 14. Conor KAVANAGH, 15. Jack EADES, 20. Harry O’BRIEN, 21. Nicholas CARROLL (16. David ONOFORO 64’)

Substitutes not used: 1. Jack ADAMS
Yellow cards: Gibson 65’ O’Brien 81’ Stallard 94’
Red cards: Nil

Armadale: 1. Cyril SHARROCK, 3. Jackson BEALEY, 4. Andrew TODD, 6. Nathan COSTELLO, 7. Raveshlan KUPPUSAMY (15. Billy QUINNCROFT 78’), 8. Llewellyn BAKE (17. Daniel RICHMAN 63’), 9. Darren FRANCIS, 10.Rhys LOXLEY, 11. Mark PEERS (18. Lance LOUVIE 70’), 14 Mitchell CASTRILLI, 19. Jack SALTER

Substitutes not used: 13. Sam LOVELESS, 2. Alex TAYLOR
Yellow cards: Costello 89’
Red cards: Nil