Gaffer's thoughts after the win at Rotherham which keeps Town top
Town put in another great away performance to come away from Rotherham with another 3 points to keep them top of the Sky Bet League One.
It was a game of incident and big decisions but in the end a late, late goal from Stefan Payne saw the 700 Town fans go home very happy.
After the game manager Paul Hurst was asked for his thoughts on the game.
“It's a great three points, I'm proud of the players, their commitment, their attitude to it. I'm very disappointed with the sending off”, said Paul.
“I haven't seen a ref want you to rush as much as we were getting advised just there but I'm delighted for the players and the fans who were behind us today.”
It was another performance where Town kept going and kept working right until the final whistle. That hard work and dedication was rewarded with another late Town goal to take the 3 points.
“I thought we had a really good shape to us, when you go to ten men there are different ways you can do it; we felt that just keeping the four-four-one would help”, said Paul.
“I thought if we narrowed it off the ball would have come into our box too easily and they threw it in there at nearly every opportunity, whether it's crosses, whether it's long throws, free kicks, set plays so we knew we had to be strong. Yes we conceded to one of those, probably being too honest in getting men into the box instead of perhaps sticking close to their men.
“When they score you stand there and you feel you're going to be an unlucky story but at the end, Toto was looking, I shouted him to go up. Why not, lets go for it.
“The ball bobbled around and Steph smashed it in! It was a massive effort because this is a difficult place to come with eleven men or ten men so as I said, I'm really proud of them.”
Games turn on big decisions and after ref Jones produced a straight red card for Abu Ogogo Rotherham got back into the game.
“He comes around and makes the tackle and the lad's gone down like...well I'm not saying he didn't feel something but we thought he needed a stretcher and the next minute he's on his feet.
“At the minute it's starting to look like the same scenario as last season, things going against us; today we've not got away with it, we've managed to survive the adversity but I wasn't particularly happy with some things that were going on out there.”
Rotherham had a great early chance to get in front after the ref saw a challenge from Nsiala on Towell enough for a penalty. In the end it was a great save from Henderson but another big decision from the officials.
“He's gone in for the challenge, I think it's soft but maybe he should have just got across there and keep him at arms length and see what he was going to do”, said Paul.
“He was never going to score straight from the position he was in, he would have had to controlled the ball. I think he gave the referee the decision to make.”
“If I'd have gone that way I'd have saved it as well, if my arms were longer. I'm sure it will be mentioned that it was a good height but he went the right way and pulled off a good save. That was a big moment, I'm sure, if they could get themselves in front who knows how the game would have gone.”
Town now regroup and look forward to two games in a week with a trip to Gigg Lane to take on Bury on Tuesday night before returning to the Montgomery Waters Meadow on Saturday to entertain Bradford City.