Michael Duff on Huddersfield Town answering critics at Wrexham - with Terriers chief keeping fingers crossed regarding defender

Town became the first side to take anything away from the Red Dragons’ fortress this season - on their first visit to North Wales since May 2005 - with Phil Parkinson’s side heading into the game with a 100 per cent record from their previous five home league games.

Despite fielding pressure in the opening 45 minutes, Town did not go under and were the better side in the second half, with Duff feeling the visitors could have ‘nicked’ victory on another night against the high-flying hosts.

Still, the sight of his team extending their unbeaten sequence to four matches in all competitions and taking a hard-earned point at a very difficult venue was pretty encouraging as they became the first side to take anything away from Wrexham since mid-March.

Duff, whose side welcome Exeter City on Saturday, said: "We have talked about our mentality and mindset when a little bit of heat has come on, we’ve sort of gone under, but we’ve not stuck to task and how we want to look.

"I thought at half-time that the goalkeeper and back three kept us in the game. I think Chappy (Jacob Chapman) made only one save, but we’ve had to do a lot of defending, too much for hat we like.

"We tweaked a couple of things at half-time and I thought we wrestled control of the game.

"I’ve been told they’d scored 15 goals in five (home) games and we’ve limited them to one shot on target.

"The criticism has been that when the heat has come, we’ve crumbled a little bit and we didn’t and hopefully that’s a positive step."

Duff elected to hand Oli Turton his first league start under him in preference to Brodie Spencer - available again after suspension - and admits it was a big decision.

The performance of the experienced defender vindicated matters, although he did come off on 69 minutes after tightening up with cramp.

On the decision to opt for Turton, Duff, who confirmed that Lasse Sorensen is out for eight weeks with a hamstring issue, told BBC Radio Leeds: "That was a big conversation.

"The back three were excellent against Barnsley a couple of weeks ago, with Nigel (Lonwijk), Matty (Pearson) and Brodie. Brodie has got himself suspended and Leesy (Tom Lees) has come in and done well.

"Oli has (now) come in and done well (in coming on for Sorensen last weekend). We didn’t think Oli would get through the game and that was part of the thinking; there’s a natural replacement there.

"I think it was just cramp. He got ten minutes longer than we thought. I thought he was doing well.

"You have got to be true to the players and it’s all right me telling one thing and doing another. He came in and did really well (against Bristol Rovers), so you come in, do well, you keep your shirt. Chappy has proved that. You don’t want one rule for one, one rule for the other.

"I said before he got a kick that Oli is not a trialist, he’s played a lot of football at a really high level.

"With the make-up of the bench (earlier this season), he never got an opportunity. But it wasn’t like we never thought he was a good player.

"So hopefully, we’ll wrap him up in cotton wool again and see where he’s at. I think it was cramps in his hamstring, hopefully it’s nothing more than that.”