Rotherham United get their reward at last as Matt Taylor praises his team for 1-0 win over Sheffield United

In Burnley, Norwich City and the Blades, Taylor's Millers have played three of the strongest sides in the division. They lost the first two, but the manager was delighted with the performances.

"Burnley, Norwich, tonight, performances have been where they need to be and we've got our rewards tonight," he said.

"The first half was as good as I've seen us in terms of how compact we were, moving the ball and having a threat. We should have gone in more comfortable than we did, in terms of the penalty decision.

"The second half, as always away from home against a top-quality team you're going to have to sit out certain moments of the game. I thought we did that relatively comfortable.

"We defended well, we forced them into longer deliveries which produced moments of weakness from ourselves in terms of physical presence.

"We had a really mobile back three, the most mobile back three I've picked in my time at the club but then you lose a bit of physicality

"We forced them into something different and that still threatened our goal a little bit but it was moments of not clear-cut chances, we had pressure on the ball and we had a good goalkeeper (Viktor Johansson) to make saves when needed.

"Certainly towards the end when we got Tom (Eaves) on the pitch and took the diags out of the equation, we were able to sustain a bit of field position."

Having opened the scoring in the first half through Ben Wiles, Rotherham were inevitably going to have to spend a lot of the second period defending, but they never lost heart.

"The spirit's never in question with this group of players and that's testament to the previous manager," said Taylor.

"That's a hard thing to keep on producing when you're not getting what you feel you deserve.

"I could see what might happen in the second half when that decision went against us before half-time but they have got a amount of character and if they do anything well, they defend their box and their defensive third with their absolute lives.

"That's something that I want to keep enhancing but also take the pressure off the team.

"We did that in the first half and I want our second-half performance to look like the first half."

Rotherham's miserable history at Bramall Lane was a source of inspiration.

"I said it to the players, we knew it before the game," revealed Taylor.

"I said about 1980 being a long time ago, I wasn't born, but what it would be like for the fans to witness it.

"I used myself as an example because I'm a (Manchester) United fan and the games I remember as a kid were United-City, United-Liverpool, United-Leeds, the ones with a little bit more spice about them.

"The derbies mean more to the fans but as much as it means to those fans, it means more to the players.

"They've been beaten and taken a few blows the last couple of weeks, and that's never nice, so it's a big confidence booster."