There were those that thought that this game had nothing on it, that it was meaningless in the bigger picture of the season. But they were wrong, this was a game that had to be won and fourth place secured for the home advantage in the semi finals and it could easily have gone wrong.

The thousands of Saints supporters who made the long trip up to Deepdale, most leaving their homes by 5am or thereabouts, gave the team magnificent backing, they made it seem like a home game, around 1/3rd of the crowd seemed to be wearing red & white or yellow & blue.

The official attendance was 20,085 in a ground that holds 23,408, there was no way that it was anywhere near that number, perhaps they included season ticket holders who didn't turn up, but there were far more than 3,000 or so seats empty in the other 3 sides of the stadium.

With over 5,000 Saints supporters in the stadium roaring the team on, we had to do our job and then hope that things went our way elsewhere.

On 12 minutes we got off to a great start when Welington made a great run and stood the ball up with a pin point cross and Taylor Harwood-Bellis powered the ball into the top corner with his head.

You hoped now that we would go on to dominate the game, but although we had a few chances, not least a great shot by Tom Fellows that was inches away to being his first goal, Preston seemed to find their form and had some good chances to equalise.

Two minutes after the break though it was 2-0, Ross Stewart turned once, turned again and then a third time before coolly slotting the ball into the bottom corner, surely now the game was beyond Preston.

The answer to that was no, they pushed forward as if their lives depended on it and we had to be on top of our game to keep them out.

They mostly went long and it paid off on the hour mark, they seemed to have done their homework on the fact that Daniel Peretz comes a long way out of his area when we are in possession, the keeper caught a cross and launched the ball forward for Dobbin to chase and chase it he did,

Peretz seemed to have it covered but as the ball bounced he realised that he had misjudged the pace of it, he tried to re-adjust and in doing so slipped up leaving Dobbin with a short canter to slide the ball into an empty net.

Now it was game on and Preston sensed blood and with nothing on the game for them, they could play without fear.

Certainly Tonda Eckert knew he had to do something and he soon made a triple substitutions, the pace of Larin up front and James Bree & Finn Azaz, possibly the latter two he would have preferred to have rested and let them be fresh of the play offs.

Likewise the fourth change on 77 minutes with Ryan Manning coming on for Welington.

Preston blustered for a while, but you still sensed there was another goal in the game as it headed for injury time and Preston perhaps also sensed this.

But we stayed strong and Sam Edozie put in a perfect cross for Cyle Larin to finish it off from about a foot from goal.

Now the game was done and as the results from elsewhere came in you realised how important the win was and even this 3rd goal.

A look at the table showed that we were ahead of Middlesbrough by a one goal difference, had they got a winner at Wrexham or we had let in an equaliser, then the positions would have changed and Boro would have gained home advantage in the 2nd leg.

Indeed without that Larin goal we would have been level on goal difference and then it would have gone on goals scored, luckily we were well ahead of them on that score, but as I say there was only a single goal in it.

It was very important to get that 2nd leg home advantage, we saw evidence of that 2 years ago against West Brom when after a draw at the Hawthorns they came to St Mary's and couldn't live with us in what was a cauldron of noise.

Getting that home advantage is not just about playing at home second, it is psychological, Boro will feel they have to beat us at home and beat us well, as West Brom found out, if you don't win well then you know that it's going to be tough.

So all in all a great finish from both the players and fans, only 4 weeks earlier we had gone to Wrexham thinking if we lose then Wrexham would have the advantage on us and we would struggle to catch them.

I thought that we still looked a bit tired on the pitch though, aside from the International breaks, we have been playing Saturday and then midweek virtually every week for the last 3 months.

Now at last we have a week off and that will hopefully revitalise the squad.

Back at the start of February we were resigned to finishing outside the play off spots, yet now here we are and we need to capitalise on that fact, we are the only one of the 4 play off teams who are unbeaten in the final 6 games of the season, indeed only Millwall are anywhere near our form.

Middlesbrough themselves are on the floor, they have gone from automatic promotion favourites to end in 5th position.

It was a great day on Saturday at Deepdale, it was far from meaningless, ask any manager whether they prefer to play home or away in the 2nd leg and they will all be in agreement.

It was also a day to celebrate the achievements of Tonda Eckert and his team, how they have made us proud to support our club again after an awful 18 month period after winning the play offs last time.

It was good to walk out of the stadium listening to the home fans talking about how good our team looked and how great the Saints fans had been.

Now we march on into the play offs, the one thing that Tonda Eckert has taught us is that every game is important and is never over to the final whistle, Ok that might be 2 things, but whose counting.

All Photos Via Reuters