Simon delighted with late point
Simon Grayson was delighted with the character of his players as they earned a late point courtesy of Lee Novak against Blackburn Rovers.Novak’s second of the game came off virtually the last kick after Jordan Rhodes and Danny Murphy had put Rovers ahead.
“The lads are buzzing. It always feels like that when you snatch a last gasp draw,” said Simon.
“Full credit to the players, they kept going and showed a fantastic desire to get something out of the game, which I thought we deserved.”
Murphy’s goal came after a dubious penalty award for the visitors after Joel Lynch and Markus Olsson came together in the box.
“A decision like that can change teams’ seasons, in my opinion he got it wrong. Sometimes when players come together like that you have to look at where the ball ends up. On that occasion if the Blackburn lad had the last touch on the ball it would have gone near the corner flag, which it didn’t.
“It is testament to the players that they reacted positively. The decision if anything galvanised them. The fans played a part and got behind the team and we had players on the pitch that caused the opposition problems. Big Alan (Lee) and Lee (Novak) were a handful together and we were positive in everything that we did.”
Novak’s brace are his first home goals of the season and come after the striker hadn’t trained since Town’s last game against Bristol City.
“Lee hasn’t trained since Saturday, but we patched him up and he declared himself fit,” Simon said. “He worked extremely hard as the lone striker in the first half and he reaped the rewards. He probably won’t score two more scrappy goals in his career, but you have to be there to put them away.
“We have got some tired bodies in the changing room and a few players with some knocks, but we will patch them up and get ready for the weekend. Tonight feels like a victory because of the manner that we did it in."
Jordan Rhodes marked his return to Huddersfield with the equaliser on the stroke of half-time.
“You know what you are going to get with Jordan, he has fantastic goalscoring ability. We switched off for 30 seconds in the first half and he punished us, just like he did many times during his time here. It was inevitable that he would score.”
Strike duo Jermaine Beckford and James Vaughan were again missing for the Terriers, but could be in with a chance for the Barnsley game.
“Jermaine Beckford was close tonight and hopefully he won’t have any more reactions to his injury ahead of the weekend. Hopefully he will train Thursday and Friday and be available for selection on Saturday. James Vaughan has had a scan and we will see what the results are of that over the next couple of days, hopefully that will give us a clearer indication of where he is at for the weekend.”
