There were some that said the Saints defence would not be needed much up at Hillsborough, but they were wrong , with all three goals being scored by those playing in the back four.

I said in the preview that this was always going to be more about the result than the performance, that we should not underestimate the battling attributes of the Owls to keep going and make it hard for us and that proved to be the case.

In truth we really should have won this with a little more ease, after going 2-0 up at the break courtesy of another James Bree thunderbolt and Ryan Manning doing his impersonation of Matthew Le Tissier with a free kick in first half injury time.

But in the second half we took our foot off the gas and had our usual lapse of concentration to let Wednesday get back into the game on 57 minutes and for a while with the crowd roused behind them, the home side looked to produce an equaliser and end their losing streak.

But on 71 minutes we restored the two goal lead and saw out the game, although in injury time it took a Daniel Peretz save to keep Wednesday at arms length and not make it a nervy last few minutes.

Given we were missing a fair chunk of our squad, Welington & Robinson long term and Flynn Downes was rested and Ross Stewart & Caspar Jander with both unable to even sit on the bench, you wondered whether this would be a problem.

The answer was it wasn't and in the main we put in a competent performance that expended our unbeaten run to 9 games.

In truth it was all about the result, anything less than a win would have been a disaster, but we got the job done.

But it got us no nearer the top six, with Hull winning at Portsmouth that was a bitter sweet result, that kept the Tigers 7 points ahead of us, If Pompey had beaten them it would have opened out our chances of catching them.

Likewise Nathan Jones did us no favours, Charlton dominated the game and almost equalised right at the death, but ultimately Wrexham scraped a win that keeps them 4 points in front of us.

This was a game where the unsung heroes once again stepped up, James Bree & Ryan Manning both scoring quality goals and both are in the best form of their careers at St Mary's.

Manning deserves a special mention, he has often born the brunt of the fans frustrations, but his contributions so far are 6 goals in the Championship plus 3 assists, including 3 superb free kicks that Le God himself would be proud of.

Cameron Bragg also came into the side and alongside Shea Charles ran the midfield.

But we should not get too complacent here, after all Wednesday haven't so much as drawn a game since the turn of the year, we were on a potential banana skin here, but we had to take 3 points and we did do.

A special mention for the Southampton supporters well over 3,000 of them made the trip to South Yorkshire for one of the longest trips of the season. It was again superb support in an away end that being on two levels made it difficult to get people in unison at times.

Now we have a week off from the Championship and face Fulham in the FA Cup and a chance to have a well earned break for some players, Tonda Eckert has to manage his squad and make sure that he can keep players fit.

But we have marched on in these games, no team has a better record than us in the last 6 games and we have to keep this record going.

All Photos Via Reuters