Big-match verdict: Huddersfield Town still waiting for home victory in play-offs as Sheffield Wednesday's stifling ploy works

For the Tottenham Hotspur legend – whose former club played their final game at White Hart Lane yesterday – it was always about the glory.

Yorkshire rivals Huddersfield Town and Sheffield Wednesday strode out at a sun-kissed John Smith’s Stadium with their sights set on glory on a radiant Sunday lunch-time, while appreciating that would most likely be somewhere further down the line at Wembley on May 29.

Come play-off time, the style and panache that a footballing romantic like Blanchflower so cherished is often secondary in terms of importance. It is clearly about winning and if it arrives with some elan, that is a bonus.

Pragmatism has its place in mid-May, with the Owls’ cautious, safety-first approach bearing particular testimony to that.

Carlos Carvalhal’s side employed the sort of textbook first-leg away tactics that Europe’s footballing powerhouses have chosen sporadically in the past.

The Portuguese made no apologies for that at the final whistle and why should he?

Huddersfield, for their part, tried to make things happen on an attacking front and the sight of them rediscovering their old selves in terms of their attractive and energetic build-up play was encouraging after a fraught past few weeks.

But the hosts could not find a way through as they cemented their reputation for being pleasing on the eye as well as their more unfortunate status as the lowest scorers in the top six of the Championship.

It left the Owls more satisfied at the final whistle as they went away from Huddersfield without conceding a goal for the seventh successive occasion, with all eyes now turning to Wednesday night at a sell-out Hillsborough.

In their ninth play-off campaign, Town’s wait for a home victory rumbles on, although a clean sheet will be viewed as a positive, allied to the fact that the onus is on Wednesday to be bolder and more dynamic in their attacking forays in midweek, which may suit the visitors.

A high-stakes occasion pitting two continental coaches together proved one for the footballing purist and those who delight in tactical football battles akin to a chess match.

The shape, organisation and discipline shown by both sets of on-message players was exemplary, but sadly the entertainment level was not particularly high, certainly from an attacking viewpoint if you were a Wednesdayite.

As with the play-offs, you pay your money and take your choice and for every classic, there are three or four arm-wrestles.

Yesterday was most definitely a case in point.

In a fixture in Huddersfield where goals have proved somewhat scarce in recent years – with just nine registered in ten previous matches between the pair at the John Smith’s Stadium ahead of yesterday’s stalemate – there was proof that some things just do not change.

At least, Town head coach David Wagner took solace in a zestful performance that displayed elements of why his side have enjoyed such a fruitful year, while his opposite number Carvalhal got a decent result too.

The second half was at least interspersed with pockets of enlightenment and animation, with the first half, by contrast, being particularly tight.

The polish and intent unquestionably arrived from Huddersfield, while the Owls, with the second leg being at Hillsborough, appeared happy to sit in and view the wider perspective.

The fit-again Elias Kachunga, Nahki Wells and Izzy Brown unhinged Wednesday with their pace and movement, with Aaron Mooy also pulling the strings in a reprise of some golden episodes this season, but there was to be no breakthrough.

It was Brown who had the best chance to break the deadlock, with his miscued effort clipping the crossbar after he latched onto Wells’s flick on, with the Owls’ rearguard failing to clear.

It proved a momentary aberration at the back from Wednesday, with Tom Lees and Glenn Loovens efficiently tidying up most threatening situations and, when they were not there, Keiren Westwood was not to be moved.

Further forward was where the issues were for the Owls, as they struggled for cohesion and fluency after being pushed on the back foot by the hosts, for whom Mooy and Jonathan Hogg proved dominant forces in the middle.

Town had their moments on the restart, with Westwood kept honest when he tipped over a delicate chip from Wells before Adam Reach drove forward and fired wide in a rare Owls raid.

Westwood also did well to block Wells’s effort at the near post after Rajiv van La Parra’s cross rebounded off Jack Hunt into the Bermudian’s path, but aside from that, the Owls’ goalkeeper was hardly called upon, while counterpart Joel Coleman had a much quieter afternoon than he would have envisaged.

Hardly a classic, but the prize at the end of it is gleaming.