KIM HELLBERG was coming to the end of his five-minute post-match interview with BBC Tees on Friday night and laughed about the fact he hadn't been asked about Will Lankshear.
More questions then followed from the gathered written media but Lankshear was again barely mentioned.
Why? Well, mainly because of the inevitability of what had gone before. Two more goals to take his tally to 13 in 15 appearances. What more could be said of the brilliant striker that hadn't been said before?
Indeed, there was far more post-match focus on Lankshear last week when he was left out of the starting XI for the visit of Cardiff City. How Bolton must have wished the schedule had ensured they weren't coming up against Boro smack bang in the middle of two free midweeks. Then again, as Bolton boss Steven Schumacher said prior to Friday night's game, if you focus too much on Lankshear then you'll be punished by Amario Cozier-Duberry, Tommy Conway or Riley McGree.
They were all at it and on it on Friday night, sorry Bolton the helpless victims.
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And that's the other reason why Lankshear wasn't the sole focus of the post-match discussion, because there was so much that was good about Boro's display.
There was Cozier-Duberry terrorising his former side, there was "electric" Conway's best performance of the season and that was undoubtedly the case McGree too. There was Aidan Morris bossing and scoring, Sebastian Berhalter fizzing the ball about and Ashley Phillips, a centre-half, flicking it into the path of a forward on the edge of the opposition box as part of a glorious team move.
"There were moments where you have that ‘wow’ feeling," admitted Hellberg.
"The goal, where I saw now that Ash jumped over the ball and Riley puts Tommy in… that's the thing we like. We had so many good attacks and we were running in behind. They could never rest. We were brave on the ball, we overlap, we run, but then, as a coach also, when they scored that 3-1, you also start thinking, ‘Okay, what will happen now? How will the game end up?’
"They could go out and score 3-2, which always can happen - I think they had a shot from distance, and you never know, it could end up in the goal, and then it will change the game again. But we didn’t let that happen and by the end I was very happy."
Safe to say the boisterous 5,100 travelling supporters were happy, too.
It's one defeat in 12 for Boro, who are unbeaten in 10 and have lost just one regular Championship away game away from home since February.
Back to Lankshear and the quite remarkable numbers he's racking up.
He's now - before October is out - just one goal shy of the tally that saw Morgan Whittaker top the Boro goal charts last season. And prior to Saturday afternoon's fixtures, there are five Championship teams that haven't scored as many league goals as the striker so far this season. No player in England's top four divisions has scored more.
"It's some start to be fair," the striker said himself on Friday night.
And the same can be said of Boro, who reached 25 points on the same weekend last season but the two teams and the two squads are incomparable. Two internationals and a promotion winner from last season were among the players to come off the bench at Bolton on Friday night.
Last night's game proved what fans seemed to be in agreement about ahead of kick-off - that's Hellberg's strongest XI as things stand. And that was the most complete performance of the season so far, even taking Bolton's scruffy and avoidable goal into account.
“A lot of people will judge us very hard, but if you look at the numbers, we’re up there in absolutely everything - a top, top level," said Hellberg.
"This performance was very good, but we’ve also been up there a lot of times lately. Over 90 minutes, that was very strong."
As pointed out by Not The Top 20 podcast on Friday night, Boro have the highest xG, best xG difference, most crosses, most shots on target, most successful final-third passes and most touches in the opposition box in the Championship so far this season.
No wonder Lankshear is enjoying himself.
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