Conor Chaplin’s 20th goal of the season has given the Blues a 1-0 half-time lead against Derby County at Pride Park.
Greg Leigh replaced Leif Davis at left-back in an otherwise unchanged Town side, the summer signing from Leeds absent from the 18 having presumably picked up a knock during the Blues’ fortnight without a match.
Leigh was making only his third league start for Town having last been in the XI in League One for the 1-1 draw at Lincoln on January 2nd.
For Derby, former Blues striker David McGoldrick started with Conor Hourihane, who never made a first-team appearance during his year at Town just over a decade ago, among the substitutes.
The first attack of the game led to the first yellow card, Rams defender Eiran Cashin handed a caution for a late tackle on Wes Burns just outside the box to the right, although the Blues still had the ball with George Hirst in the area and might well have worked an opening.
Chaplin smashed the free-kick into the wall and Nathan Broadhead’s follow-up also struck a defender before the home side eventually cleared their lines.
Town continued to take the game to the Rams and on five Hirst shot over, then in the eighth minute Clarke screwed a cross behind having been cleverly played in by Chaplin.
On 10, a move down the right, in which Chaplin had impressively turned his man, ended with Massimo Luongo scuffing wide from 25 yards.
Derby were struggling to get out of their half with their fans starting to get on their players’ backs even with the game at such an early stage.
In the 13th minute, Jake Rooney was lucky to get away with only a talking to having hauled down Broadhead early in a Blues attack with referee Anthony Backhouse having waved play on at the time.
But the Rams started to come more into it and their supporters behind them, and in the 16th minute Town keeper Christian Walton was forced to punch Derby skipper Max Bird’s looping corner from the right over from under his bar.
And from the resultant Derby corner, the Blues went in front via a superb counter-attacking goal.
Walton comfortably caught the ball and threw it out to Broadhead on the right. The Welshman played the ball across to his fellow Welsh international Wes Burns, who knocked down to Chaplin behind Korey Smith and the forward confidently beat home keeper Joe Wildsmith to take his total for the season to 20.
Chaplin and his teammates gleefully celebrated the former Barnsley man becoming the first Town player to pass that milestone since Daryl Murphy in 2014/15 in front of the 3,100 Blues supporters in the corner by the goal.
Town, who had thoroughly deserved the goal, maintained their dominance and weren’t too far away from a second in the 22nd minute when Clarke unleashed a powerful strike from distance after a short corner on the left had been worked to him.
Wildsmith saved but the ball looped out to Chaplin, who headed wide when he will feel he might have grabbed his 21st of the campaign.
A minute later, former Blues striker McGoldrick got his name in the book for a frustrated challenge on Chaplin having been dispossessed moments earlier.
The home fans, but notably not their players, claimed a penalty in the 26th minute when Clarke muscled Jason Knight off the ball in the box.
Town quickly broke and Broadhead took the ball across the Derby area from the left but without finding space to shoot.
Burns then crossed from the right, Hirst knocked down and Luongo hit an effort which was bundled out for the first of three corners in quick succession on the left, Broadhead whipping them over in Davis’s absence, Wildsmith eventually claiming the last of them.
As the game reached the half hour, Walton comfortably saved James Collins’s header from a Nathaniel Mendez-Laing cross from the right.
The Rams subsequently enjoyed a long spell on the ball and in control in the Town half and eventually a Collins cross from the left was diverted into Walton’s hands by Cameron Burgess with the use of his thigh.
Derby kept up the pressure on the Blues, skipper Bird shooting wide from distance in the 38th minute.
Three minutes later, Clarke was booked for taking too much time over a throw, not the first time Town had been rather tardy at a restart since going in front.
The Blues briefly got themselves back in the ascendency but in the final minute of the half, the home side might have levelled. Mendez-Laing sent over a deep cross from the right which McGoldrick met with his head at the far post but the former Irish international was only able to find the side-netting.
In injury time, Leigh clipped over a cross from the left which Wildsmith, not for the first time, dealt with uncomfortably, but the ball just wouldn’t fall for a Town player.
That was the final action of a pulsating half in which the Blues been well on top and deserving their excellent counter-attacking goal.
The Rams had come more into it in the final quarter-hour and might well have got back on terms via McGoldrick in the latter stages.
Town, whose time without conceding is now up to 731 minutes, may have to withstand some pressure during the second period but should get more opportunities to increase their lead at the other end. The second goal in the game is likely to prove crucial.
Derby: Wildsmith, Forsyth, Cashin, Bird (c), Collins, McGoldrick, Mendez-Laing, Smith, Roberts, Rooney, Knight. Subs: McGee, Davies, White, Hourihane, Barkhuizen, Sibley, Dobbin.
Town: Walton, Clarke, Woolfenden, Burgess, Burns, Morsy (c), Luongo, Leigh, Chaplin, Broadhead, Hirst. Subs: Hladky, Donacien, Ball, Edwards, Harness, Jackson, Ladapo. Referee: Anthony Backhouse (Cumbria).