MATCH-WINNER Darel Russell praised all of his team-mates for a display full of determination and steel as City withstood heavy QPR pressure to take the honours thanks to his second-half strike.

He told First News: "We're usually a team which goes out and plays football and we're not usually that good on the battling side of things, but today it was almost impossible to play football on that pitch with the conditions. We were called upon to battle first rather than play football - from that point of view against such a big side like QPR I think we did fantastically. It was a battling performance, where we are in the league that's exactly what we need.

"We knew what we needed to do and all the boys wanted to do it for the Club and for themselves and the city, and I think that showed. We helped each other when we needed it, everyone fought and did what they needed to. We need to keep those clean sheets, and it was fantastic to do that tonight. We managed to nick that goal and it's a perfect result for us tonight.

"We've established what we needed to do, we know what we're about - the senior lads have spoken to everyone else and we'll hopefully move ahead."

Russell refused to bask in the glory of his winning strike, insisting it didn't matter who scored, it was a spirited, collective scrap by the squad which ensured the three points would be wending their way back along the A11 with hundreds of happy Canary fans: "Whoever got the goal today, it would have been massive. We battled so hard to get that goal so whoever scored it, it meant a lot. It was a relief to an extent, it was a comfortable feeling when we were that goal ahead, we felt solid enough to not concede tonight and we didn't do that," he commented.