John Smith's PNE Fans' Panel verdict: It wasn’t pretty but PNE showed battling qualities

The narrow win must surely end any fears of us being sucked into a relegation dogfight in the season's remaining last few weeks.

Manager Ryan Lowe decided to start with the team which had finished the game more on the front foot in the second half at Hull last week but it was bottom-of-the-table Wigan, who had not won here since a 4-2 win 19 years ago, who went into the interval with a one-goal lead courtesy of a textbook "Carry On Defending" style own goal.

Before the game I had seen a page in the match programme advertising the breakfast show of local radio DJ Joel Ross headlined with the slogan of "Waking Up Preston " but at half-time with us only having scored eight home league goals this season, I could not see anything happening on the pitch doing this for our fans.

Unfortunately it seemed that once again Deepdale had become "Sleepdale" with the crowd only waking up at half time to jeer the team off the pitch with a chorus of boos.

I also got the impression that the people I saw on the Alan Kelly Stand were not greeting their manager with a friendly hello when waving at him as he hurriedly disappeared down the tunnel to deliver his half-time team talk.

As I watched him walk back out with his head slightly bowed ignoring the handful of people in The Invincibles who applauded him on his return to the dugout for the second period, he reminded me of a Roman gladiator about to lose a brutal duel to the death in the Colosseum.

In those times when a gladiator knew his fight was up he could throw himself to the floor and while kneeling raise a finger towards the emperor in a bid for mercy.

Whether or not Ryan Lowe would have faced a turned-down thumb gesture from the emperor overseeing Deepdale after this contest was made irrelevant when two early second-half goals turned the game on its head.

The first goal which completely changed the atmosphere was a welcome change from the normality of the Deepdale curse when we were awarded a disputed penalty which was duly converted.

More delight followed a few minutes later when it was a case of "Rock On Tommy" for man of the match Tom Cannon when he fired the ball into the net for what turned out to be the winning goal.

Towards the end it became a tough watch as Wigan pressed for an equaliser but on a positive side we battled hard in the second half ridding ourselves of some casual sloppy play seen in the first in order to gain this long-awaited home win.