Lee Grant enjoys seeing rewards of clear-eyed week at Huddersfield Town
Lee Grant praised his Huddersfield Town players for the way they carried out the most "clear-eyed" week of training of his management tenure.
The Terriers manager came into the Yorkshire derby at Rotherham United under real pressure after the angry supporter reaction to his side's 1-1 draw with Wigan Athletic seven days earlier.
But they waltzed to a 3-1 victory over an anaemic Millers side, scoring all three of their goals in the first half, and only conceded in second-half stoppage time.
Afterwards, Grant said that the previous week's result had focussed minds, and he was delighted with the response.
"That was really enjoyable for a few reasons, but mainly because that was one of the clearest reflections of the work that we've done in the week translating to a game," he said afterwards.
"It's really hard to pinpoint moments or phases or actions in the game that didn't reflect everything that we talked about and discussed.
"The lads put a lot of hard work in this week to to really drill and dial into so that was really nice.
"In terms of the balance of the two halves, I said to the group it's really hard for me to pick which half I enjoyed the most and that's being really honest.
"Of course the (Sam Nombe) goal takes a shine off of it but in terms of the duels, the fight, the scrap, the readiness to understand that the game's changed now and something else is needed, some other qualities are needed, I loved all that in the second half as well.
"Probably for the goal we end up with two of the back three trying to do the right thing and there's something to enjoy about that but there's also the fine detail. We've suffered a lot recently if we get the fine detail wrong in any moment but in reality it doesn't take away from how incredibly important and dominant the display was defensively."
Lynden Gooch, Bojan Radulovic and Leo Castledine scored the goals, with Radulovic and Castledine making the first, and Gooch creating the other two.
"There was real clarity," said Grant. "It's hard to try and describe it but this week, and I said this to the group, it's the most clear-headed, narrow-focussed I've been.
"I was so clear on what we needed to do and the staff and myself delivering as much of that clarity as we can for the players and then the players for me going into a game with really clear heads, really clear and clean ideas, real good conviction about the things that they want to do, a real good understanding of the game context and the dynamic, that they're walking into in a local derby and their stadium and all of those things combined.
"I could see it all play out."