Inigo Calderon cited the “desire” of his Bristol Rovers players as being the key ingredient as they held off Huddersfield with a 1-0 League One win at the Memorial Stadium.
Ruel Sotiriou proved the match winner for the relegation-threatened side as his 10th-minute volley made the most of Clinton Mola’s header over the top of a disorganised Terriers defensive line.
Scott Sinclair and Matt Butcher spurned good chances to increase the lead but the Gas’ defence remained resolute to make it back-to-back clean sheets in the league.
“I think we won that because we wanted it more than them,” explained Calderon. “Maybe the football was not the best but we reacted during the game and improved.
“But the most important thing was the desire to win and that’s really important in this situation (with Rovers one place above the relegation zone). Everything became easier after that.
“It didn’t look too good when we had to make a sub, an early change with Promise Omochere (hamstring injury) and that’s not what you want.
“Losing Chris Martin yesterday (to injury) then today your other striker, you could say ‘wow, we’re unlucky, it’s not our day’ but the players reacted in the right way.
“You have two options: you can give up or you can say ‘OK, come to my face and I face you’. And the boys did that.”
Michael Duff was disappointed with how his Huddersfield team dominated the early stages of the match but were unable to capitalise.
The Terriers carved out early opportunities for forwards Dion Charles and Callum Marshall to score but Pirates goalkeeper Jed Ward and the Rovers defence stood firm.
Duff pinpointed his side moving away from the game plan as explaining why they got worse as the match went on. The defeat means the West Yorkshire outfit drop out of the top six.
“I thought the first half-an-hour, we were excellent,” he said. “Probably should have scored two or three goals. It’s another away game where the opposition have done absolutely nothing to score a goal.
“It puts us on the back foot, then we start panicking and coming off script.
“Then second half, we were a team of individuals and nowhere near good enough.
“We had 10 corners in the first hour of the game and the last half-an-hour, we still got into good areas but there was a lack of quality and people just being in the wrong positions and not doing the things that hurt them in the first half.
“We were in total control and then you shoot yourselves in the foot with a nothing goal.
“There’s lots of adversity at the moment and some of them (the squad) are going into self preservation. You wouldn’t think they’re the same team in the last half-an-hour.”
