Speaking ahead of our South Yorkshire derby with Rotherham United this weekend, Brad Collins says it was important that Barnsley showed an encouraging reaction in their last outing.
The Reds put in a fine display to beat Huddersfield 1-0 on Wednesday evening, banishing any lingering memories there may have been of Sunday’s defeat at Coventry City.
“It was a very big win,” insisted Collins. “It was a tough game at Coventry – we didn’t perform the best, but we’re obviously very delighted to bounce back with a great win over Huddersfield in the week.
“There’s so many games in this league, so you’re going to have loads of opportunities to bounce back and I feel like we did that really well, and we’ll look forward now.”
With three matches remaining, Barnsley are tantalisingly close to securing a place in the play-offs and a positive result against the Millers on Saturday could be enough to seal a top six finish.
However, until it’s a formality, Collins asserts that he and his teammates will be taking nothing for granted as they continue this fairytale campaign.
“There’s still nine points to play for, so until it’s mathematically safe that we’re in there then we can’t look at it,” continued our goalkeeper. “We have three massive games left this season and we’re looking forward to them.
“We just go game by game and, at the end of the season we’ll see where we end up and go from there.”
It has been a remarkable 12 months for the Reds, who retained their Sky Bet Championship status with virtually the last kick of the season at Griffin Park back in July.
Collins believes that this squad have developed a unique bond during that time and the team spirit built on the dramatic end to the previous campaign has played a huge part in recent success.
“We’re all very young and hungry footballers and we just want to play games and do the best we can,” he said. “This year, we’ve done pretty well compared to last year but last year was a massive learning curve; there was lots of new players and not many of us had played in the Championship before and, this year, I feel like we’re reaping the benefits of a tough year last year.
“It was a very tough year last year and I feel like, as a team, we learnt a lot, especially togetherness as well in those tough times. The way we did it on the last day, you have to be together – if you’re not together, that doesn’t happen.”
