HUDDERSFIELD TOWN fell victim to George Boyd’s “best-ever goal” at Peterborough and midfielder Keith Southern accepted: “It was a killer blow for us.”
Having opened the scoring with a low angled shot in the 16th minute of the Championship clash, former Stevenage player Boyd beat the back-pedalling Alex Smithies with an audacious long-range lob in the 24th.
South African full-back Kgosi Ntlhe made it three early in the second half and while substitute Adam Hammill pulled one back, Southern admitted: “It was too little, too late.”
Southern said better defending could have prevented the first and third Posh strikes, but said of Boyd’s second: “It was a bit of a wonder goal and very difficult to do anything about, and it really killed us.”
Boyd said: “It has to go down as the best I’ve scored. I got one like it against Boston a while ago, but this was further back, from the edge of the centre circle.
“It was a lovely set-up by Saido (Berahino, the on-loan West Brom striker) and I had a little look up, saw their keeper scrambling back and just went for it.”
While Town slipped from third to sixth, Posh’s 3-1 win pulled them off the foot at the expense of Ipswich.
Boyd believes a switch to 3-4-3 by boss Darren Ferguson paid dividends, explaining: “The system worked, because we found space in between their two sets of four.
“With Grant McCann and Michael Bostwick protecting the three at the back, I was able to get forward in support of the front three.
“I thought we were solid all the way through and although they got one back, they never really hurt us.
“It got us off the bottom and it was a great way to bounce back after losing out late on at Watford. We have another home game on Saturday (against Derby) and we need to build on this win.
“We’re gaining confidence as a team. We have played well in the last four or five games without always getting the results and on Tuesday, we deserved the points.”
Boyd said of Town: “They have got a lot of quality, the front two (Jermaine Beckford and James Vaughan) have got a lot of pace and the right-back (Jack Hunt) is good going forward.
“We knew it was important to play with high intensity and press them the way they do other sides. We knew that if we matched Huddersfield that way, our quality would come through.”
Southern agreed: “They swarmed all over us and did to us what we have done to other teams.
“It was disappointing, but we have to put it behind us and bounce back at Millwall on Saturday.”
