Manager Simon Grayson spoke after the game and was delighted with the level of performance as well as result at Leyton Orient.
The North End gaffer watched his charges end the league leaders’ unbeaten home run and felt that his side has earned their victory with hard work that started on Monday morning.
“We had to work hard,” he told the media after the game. “We made that clear to the players on Monday morning when we started our preparation for the game.
“Orient work extremely hard; they close you down and they stop you from playing and we had to be even better than them at doing that and everyone, from the ones that started to the ones that came on worked so hard for the team and all contributed in a fantastic manner.
“When you look at the overall play; we were very very good from start to finish.
“I thought in the first half we were very disciplined, controlled the play, passed it around well and Orient very rarely threatened us in the first half.
“It was a great goal to go in front, but then we expected Orient to come at us.
“They are a good team and have not had the run up the top end for no reason, but when we had to battle and scrap and make last ditch challenges, we did that. The overall performance, from start to finish was excellent.
“We’ve beaten a team who had been unbeaten at home for over 260 days and we said to the players, let’s go and be the ones to go to Brisbane Road and be the first team to win there in such a long time, because we were certainly capable of it and have the players in the squad and the team to hurt most teams.
“The preparations started on Monday and everything we’ve done this week has borne fruit today.
“Everything I asked the players to do from Monday morning to five o’clock today they have done. They put their bodies on the line and they had to work for each other and they had to have that desire not to get beaten. Even at the end Declan came out and made an important block at their lad’s feet – we would have been devastated if we’d lost a goal in that last phase of the game.
“We are striving for better and bigger things. Just because we have won today doesn’t make us the finished article. It is going a long way to help us progress, it is another three points and we have to replicate the same sort of performance next week at Colchester at home.
“We have achieved nothing today. All we’ve done is come to a team that is flying at the moment and won away from home again.”
Before the game eyebrows were raised by some quarters at the selection of Jack King as the middle of the centre halves, but his performance, in his first start of the season, was first class.
“It was Jack’s first start of the season for us, but he’s an adaptable, versatile player,” continued the PNE chief. “I had no problems playing him in there today; because he is comfortable on the ball.
“He is a good size, a big presence, he talks and I thought the back three or five were excellent when they needed and our good players were able to go and play and in the first half we controlled the play for large parts and Orient hardly had an opportunity.”
And he was also pleased for Joe Garner, who he feels is starting to show the form he is capable of: “He’s a good player; his record proves that with the goals he’s scored and the clubs he’s been at.
“He’s just needed a run of games and a couple of goals to keep him going and he’s doing that.
“His technique for the goal was up there with the best finishes of the day. He maybe should have played Kevin in to kill the game off in the second half right at the end, but overall everybody can be really pleased with how they played today.”