Barnsley boss reserves special praise for returning defender following key win over Peterborough United

Making his first league start in almost a year following a serious Achilles injury, the former Blackburn Rovers man impressed before making way on 64 minutes.

The Reds chief also had praise for the recalled Eoghan O’Connell, who did not start the weekend draw with visiting AFC Wimbledon.

Hourihane said: "I thought we were a little bit better tonight, a little bit more solid.

"I thought Georgie Gent come in and put in a real good 60 minutes performance. He's not played for a while.

"I thought Eoghan O'Connell came into the middle of defence and was assured and calm. And then Corey (O’Keeffe) gives us that energy going forward as well.”

Specifically on Gent, whose last start in the league was against Lincoln last March, he added: "I was delighted for him. I've been thinking about it for the last couple of weeks.

"We've had to be really careful with Georgie. He's had a really difficult Achilles injury.

"Then he came back against Peterborough in the cup a little bit of time ago, got injured in that game. And he was out for a little bit longer than we thought when he got it originally.

"And then we really needed him to get three or four real under 21 games into him to get that fitness in. And he's been knocking on the door over the last couple of weeks.

“I thought it would have been a perfect game for him and I thought he was great.”

The Reds came from behind to pick up three valuable points.

Reyes Cleary scored the winner in the second half to earn Hourihane’s side a first league victory in four games after Luca Connell had cancelled out Kyrell Lisbie's opener for Posh.

Barnsley are now up to 13th place, eight points above the relegation zone. They are eight points behind sixth-placed Huddersfield Town – with three games in hand – ahead of Saturday’s derby at the Accu Stadium.

Hourihane added: "We saw the game out really, really well.

"The last couple of games now, we've shown character to come back from two losing positions. I think that needs to be highlighted and seen.

"I think a lot of people obviously highlight when we concede goals or whatever, but there's a lot of character in the team to come back from two losing positions over the last couple of games.

"And it feels like an important win tonight just to kind of put us on the right track again over the last couple of games.

“Obviously I’m very pleased overall to win. I felt the first half was a little bit too open for my liking, constantly transitioning on each other.

“I thought they had a couple of chances to score a couple more and I thought we did as well. Second half, we sorted out a couple of bits in terms of information around how we press and not to be so open in the game and have a little bit more control when we got into the final third.

"I thought we had that second half.”