Sheffield Wednesday’s travelling army of support went home from Nottingham happy on Saturday evening as the Owls won for the first time in six league games at Notts County.
Having put an end to a four game losing streak with a 0-0 draw against Oldham in the previous match Alan Irvine chose to make one change to his starting 11 for the trip to Meadow Lane. Striker Paul Heffernan replaced wide midfielder Chris Sedgwick but the Owls stuck with a 4-4-2 formation as Marcus Tudgay reverted to a role on the right side of midfield.
After a month of largely abject disappointment on the pitch the side selected closely resembled that of what many Owls fans would have wanted but the match started with the visitors on the back foot early on.
Within the first five minutes Lee Hughes, back after missing County’s excellent 3-2 win at Peterborough in midweek, had stung the palms of Weaver in the Owls goal and playmaker Ben Davies pulled a shot wide of goal.
Wednesday did have some decent moments of their own, thanks largely to the influence of Miller who tried to make things tick with passing and movement, but they looked toothless up front and rarely threatened to test former Owls stopper Rob Burch in the home goal.
But for a couple of tame efforts on target from Heffernan and Miller, Burch was largely untroubled and although the Magpies had enjoyed the better of the first half, Wednesday defended resolutely and Weaver was not severely tested either.
The visitors started the second half much better than the first and had a half shout for a penalty waived away when Heffernan received the ball to feet with his back to goal and was clumsily bundled over.
Undeterred the Owls continued to play with more purpose and grabbed the crucial first goal on 52 minutes. A ball into the box was only half cleared to Tudgay on the edge of the area who controlled and fired a drive beyond the reach of the outstretched Burch to give the Owls the lead.
Wednesday were almost caught out within a minute as the home fans celebrated when Lee Hughes headed home but the striker had done so from an offside position.
With something to hold onto the Owls looked far more assured than they had done for the previous month, enjoying a good share of possession whilst keeping their hosts at bay.
The front pair of Morrison and Heffernan were replaced by Mellor and Potter just after the hour mark and ten minutes later Mellor had the chance to double the Owls lead when played in down the left side by Coke but the forward dragged his shot wide across goal.
Notts County failed to carve out any chances to sufficiently test Weaver as the match wore on and with full-time approaching midfielder Alan Judge let his frustrations get the better of him after a tussle with Potter. The referee brandished a red card for what seemed like an innocuous moment but to be fair there were few lengthy complaints from the home side after the on loan Blackburn midfielder was adjudged to have kicked out at his counterpart. The officials did little to ease the nerves of the Wednesday fans when six minutes of injury time were shown but in the end there was no need to panic as Potter put the gloss on the result with a well placed side footed finish from Miller’s lay off.
The result brought with it a sense of joy and relief for players and fans alike, as was evidenced at the final whistle. A much better performance all round, especially in the second half resulted in more attempts at goal than the Owls had made in the past two or three matches combine and hopefully this will be a platform to get back to the form of the first month of the season, which saw the Owls top the table.
Next up for the Owls is a potentially tricky Johnstone’s Paint Trophy tie against Chesterfield at Hillsborough in front of the Sky cameras on Wednesday followed by next Saturday’s visit of struggling Leyton Orient to S6.