Blues boss Mick McCarthy was delighted to see his changes pay off as three of the four players who came into his side scored in the 3-1 home victory over Blackburn, Town’s first league victory over Rovers for 20 years. Luke Hyam, Carlos Edwards and Frank Nouble netted the goals with Rovers striker Jordan Rhodes perhaps inevitably getting on the scoresheet against his old club.
"I’m a lucky bastard, I suppose! Makes a change,” McCarthy joked after the game. "It’s nice when it works.
"I just wanted fresh legs in the team, it was a really tough game at Charlton and we’ve had another really tough game here.
"I shouldn’t be losing anything by having Hunty for Tabby and Carlos for Ando and Frank for Murph and Luke for Tunners.
"All I should be gaining is fresh legs and a bit of energy. I’ve only really got 18 outfield players and we’ve got this Christmas period coming up, it requires managing that.”
He admitted that the visitors had the better of the latter stages of the first period: "They played will in the second 22 and a half minutes.
"I thought we got the goal, we were OK, the game was going nowhere, I don’t think they were causing us any real problems and we conceded what I think was a horrible goal for us to concede having defended as well as we did, and they were the better side and went in at half-time with the momentum.
"They probably thought they’d come out [on the front foot] and they did started and got a corner kick as I’m walking on the pitch, but then we score within three minutes or whatever it was, which wrestled the momentum back straight away.”
McCarthy was delighted to see his side score an early goal in each half and that the goals came from midfielders.
"Long may [the early goals] continue,” he said. "We’ve been asking Luke to shoot and take chances, we’re trying to get goals from midfield and we’ve got them today.
"He shoots and I think the keeper’s wrong-footed, it was great. Lovely for him to get back in and score.”
Like Hyam, Edwards scored his first goal of the campaign after great work from full debutant Stephen Hunt: "Hunty did really well and it was nice that Carlos composed himself, he didn’t lash at it with his left foot when he was falling backwards. He composed himself, stood up and passed it into the net.”
The Town boss was similarly pleased to see Nouble net his second goal of the season and was happier with his display after the break: "In the second half he was far better, I have to be honest. That’s what he should do and when he does that he’s a handful.
"He’s frightening prospect when he’s bearing down on you with such pace and size. He’s got his rewards chasing that one. It was reminiscent of his Palace goal, I could have finished that!”
McCarthy had previously had a shout at the 22-year-old in training prior to the Blackpool game: "I gave him a real volley and he deserved it. I wouldn’t have that, we train properly whether you’re in the team or not.
"I think he was a little bit disappointed, maybe he thought he’d get his chance. And I said to him ‘That’s how you do it, you don’t have the lip on, you play properly and give me a problem the other way. The problem you give me with not training well is you just get a volley and get into trouble.”
The Town manager wasn’t too disappointed with the crowd of 14,953: "Christmas is coming and everybody’s scraping around for money. That doesn’t worry me. We’re doing all right.
"We had a fabulous crowd at Charlton the other afternoon, we do fine. Everybody’s struggling for a bit, so let’s not start getting on with that.
"What we don’t want to do is win 3-1 and then disappoint on Saturday, but we don’t know. The league’s a scrap, it’s a bonkers league, the results again today are just nuts.”
On which note McCarthy had spotted that the bottom three sides — Barnsley, Yeovil and Sheffield Wednesday - all won: "I’m glad Barnsley have won, of course, but I’m disappointed because the ones that sacked their managers all won, so it looks like a recipe to get results and we’ll all be s----ing ourselves for the next few days in case we lose a couple!”
Rovers boss Gary Bowyer was unhappy with the goals his team conceded: "I thought we started not bad, DJ Campbell could have scored within a minute, but then I thought we defended their first goal not well enough. It could have been blocked, it wasn’t a particularly great strike.
"And then I thought we were the better team in the first half and rightly got our equaliser. It was a good goal, well worked. I thought we were the better team then right up to the half-time whistle.
"But then the second goal was a poor goal and the third goal was a poor goal and you can’t come away from home [and do that].
"There wasn’t much in the game, the goalkeeper’s not had a save to make, but has conceded three through gifted goals.”