Rotherham boss Steve Evans paid tribute to centre-back Zak Jules after he belatedly made his home league debut following the death of his mother.
The 27-year-old centre-back was named man of the match as the Millers secured only their second clean sheet in 14 games in a 2-0 home win over Stevenage, with Jordan Hugill and Mallik
Wilks scoring in the second half.
Jules had only been handed his first league start during the 1-0 midweek defeat at Leyton Orient when ever-present Jamie McCart pulled out of the warm-up through injury, and Evans said: “Zak was devastated after losing his mum in the summer at a time when he was going to get married.
“It meant his family and friends had to turn up for a funeral instead of a wedding, which was cancelled, so he’s really been through the mill and has received help from support staff at all levels inside the football club, so I’m really pleased for him that he’s produced a man-of-the-match performance.
“He did that between 10 and 20 times for Exeter and I know they didn’t want to lose him.”
Evans went on to also heap praise on Hugill, whose 58th-minute introduction and deflected opening goal proved pivotal for the hosts.
“I considered bringing Jordan on at half-time because I knew he would give us some presence and he’s been really good in training,” Evans added. “We decided to give it 10 more minutes instead and, when he came on, I thought he changed the way we played in terms of our intensity and ability to get up the pitch quicker.”
Stevenage boss – and ex-Rotherham striker – Alex Revell agreed that Hugill, who once commanded a £10million transfer fee when he moved from Preston to West Ham, was the game’s key performer.
“Hugill came on and made a huge difference in the second half,” Revell said. “He won all the first contacts and the ball was played up to him every single time for him to flick on to help them get opportunities and win corners.
“The game changed when he came on and, once you allow somebody to dominate you and get the better of you like that, it’s hard to turn that back around.”
Stevenage remain League One’s lowest scorers with nine goals this term, and Revell added: “We have to create more and that’s down to centre-forwards looking after the ball when it comes up to them to help us build and, when we get opportunities to cross, we also have to produce quality and create movement.
“We have to go away and think about how we can improve that.
“We can’t rely on always keeping clean sheets because you get moments like the deflection for their goal, which could have gone anywhere but ended up in our goal.”
