JORDY Hiwula's poacher's instinct is becoming a valuable weapon for City, according to Rory McArdle.

The on-loan Huddersfield hitman claimed his ninth goal of the season with the winner at Cheltenham to book a Checkatrade Trophy quarter-final against Oxford.

It was Hiwula's fourth in the last six games – but he has also missed some gilt-edged chances to add to his tally.

McArdle, who was involved in the build-up to Tuesday's scrambled goal, believes his team-mate deserves plaudits for being prepared to take the risk.

"Jordy should get credit because he keeps plugging away and getting his goals," said the Bantams centre-back.

"There's nothing worse for a defender than if you're playing against a striker who might have missed a couple but keeps on going. He's still in there. Even if it doesn't work out, I always think that at least he's there to miss them.

"When things aren't going right, he could hide and dither about and come off after an hour. But he's always there and, as he showed, he didn't panic and tucked it away nicely. That makes him very valuable to us.

"It was a scrappy goal but that was the sort of game it was. The ball bounced around in the box, I tried to keep it alive and fortunately it landed to Jordy and not me. But I'm trying to claim an assist!"

McArdle made only his second start in eight games since the previous round of the competition and he felt City had to call upon their League Two experience to come through a tough slog on a terrible Cheltenham pitch.

He said: "You have to go to places like that and grind it out. It's easy for teams to go under. But we've seen it before in League Two, so it wasn't a massive eye-opener. We knew they were going to be direct and put the big boys up.

"You maybe don't see it week in, week out in our division and it's hard to play against. But everybody stuck in, we competed all over the pitch and it just shows we can do the messy side of the game."

City have no let-up with another trip to the Kassam Stadium next Tuesday – but with only two games standing between them and a possible Wembley date on April 2, McArdle can sense the competition taking on an extra edge.

He said: "You can't under-value any competition where the final is at Wembley. It is what it is and I know people didn't really want to play in it at the start. But now the carrot is there.

"Look at the teams people are picking now. Without disrespecting some who might have played earlier on – but managers are naming stronger sides as the final gets closer.

"Next week is going to be another tough game. It will probably be similar, apart from there will be more fans there. But we've shown it before that if Bradford get that day at Wembley, we'd sell it out. That's a great incentive for everyone."