The John Smith column:A fantastic win over Millwall for Preston considering the injury list

While the biting wind and cold rain at Deepdale on Saturday made it hardly the weather to go on a summer safari we did at least manage to successfully hunt down the Lions of Millwall in a beastly encounter which was not really one for the football purists

.At times the rough tactics of the visitors which went unpunished was like watching Mick McManus and Klondyke Bill in the days of ITV wrestling.

However, a winner should never whine and given our current number of injuries particularly in attack this was a fantastic result. In recent years we have found Millwall a difficult side to break down and prior to Saturdays game we had not beat them in five attempts since a 2-0 home win during the heady days of Billy Davies reign in January 2006.

For most of the first half despite having the majority of the attacking possession it looked like we were heading for the same scenario as Millwall defended deep putting 10 men behind the ball.

We eventually managed to break the deadlock eight minutes before the break and just like the frequency of the number 19 bus another one came along six minutes later to double our advantage.In the second half, the Lions who had been docile for most of the first one came to life and we had to defend deep.

After conceding a poor goal from a corner we restored our two goal advantage nine minutes from time and although we did concede another goal at the death we held on to record back to back league victories for only the second time this season.Th

e win was vitally important as it gives us a bit of distance in the table away from the bottom three.

A few weeks ago it seemed that we were submerged in muddy waters without a boat but now we appear to have the wind in our sails and while the elevator to the top floor of the Championship might be temporarily out of order one defeat in our last 12 outings means that we are still climbing the stairs.