The John Smith column: Heckingbottom was the duke of Deepdale after win over local rivals
Although this sounds crazy I believe that our display in the 3-1 midweek loss against Bristol City had been our best overall performance in our opening six winless games in both the league and the Carabao Cup.
The manner of it had given me some renewed optimism that we could get our first points on the board when we faced our old "friends" from 11 miles west on the Preston New Road in our biggest home league match of the season.
In the days leading up to the game I got the feeling that with the intense pressure that had been slowly building since August on manager Paul Heckingbottom' the crunch derby could even be his "Waterloo" and that similar to Napoleon, if defeated, he too might be forced into going into exile.
However, our magnificent 2-1 win meant that instead of being sent into exile, Hecky was more akin to the Duke of Wellington, the victorious winner of the Battle of Waterloo.
At Waterloo, Wellington's beleaguered army had withstood repeated attacks from the French during the day until the reinforcements of 50,000 Prussians arrived at night to turn the course of the battle round .
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At Deepdale on Saturday, Hecky was aided by his reinforcements from the summer.
In fact the only one out of his 10 new recruits not used in the 15 who played on the pitch was the reserve goalkeeper.
Maybe when the new players fully gel together they may help turn his season round. Whether or not this turns out to be the case after this result you get the feeling he might now have at least some breathing space to sort his formation out.
We did look more solid at the back and I personally thought Harry Clarke was immense.
It also seemed that captain Lewis Gibson appeared more composed playing alongside him.
We did have the odd scary moments at the back which on another day might have changed the games outcome but it was so much tighter at the back than in some previous games.
Our goals were both scored in the opening half hour by Callum Lang who was the sponsor’s man of the match.
On Tuesday night against Bristol City I had been very impressed with the debut of Stanley Mills who looks a really exciting addition to our squad.
However, I was less than impressed when I watched him slam in his first goal in PNE colours as it was unfortunately an own goal.
In fairness to Mills there was not a lot he could do about it as the Rovers player behind him would have had a simple tap in anyway.
It was the only occasion that Rovers got in behind our defence as the rest of the time they were thwarted by Daniel Iversen who would have been my nomination for "man of the match" as I thought he made several really fine saves which helped secure our win.
At the begining of the game the visiting fans had likened the atmosphere at Deepdale to "watching football in a library".
This could not be said when the referee blew for time at the end of the game when the stadium was far from silent as it erupted.
It remained bouncing for a while after as the jubilant players and fans celebrated the return of the derby bragging rights back to PR1.