Lewis Travis headed into his own net at a corner to give Town an early lead (8) before Rhian Brewster equalised from the spot following an Azor Matusiwa foul in the box (68).

The Blues showed great character to go on and win it though, a fine move leading to Leif Davis’ expert headed finish (77).

“I really enjoyed it,” said McKenna, whose side have closed the gap on the automatic promotion places to four points.

“It’s maybe my favourite win of the season. Obviously they’re all three points. We’ve had a 5-0 and some 4-1s, and we won the East Anglian derby for the first time in a long time, but I really enjoyed today.

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“We played really well at times. We started the game really well. We could have been two or three up probably with some of the moves that we put together early on.

“We had to handle the chaos of set plays and a vociferous home crowd, balls in the air and balls bouncing around. But we stood up to that well.

“We didn’t manage to get the second goal, which was probably the bit that we needed to really take control of the game, but we didn’t look like conceding.

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“Then we had had the setback of giving away a really poor penalty really. That would have been gutting for Azor (Matusiwa) and gutting for the team if that had cost us.

“The reaction was great. We got straight back to taking a foothold in the game, the subs had a big impact, it’s a brilliant winning goal and then there’s some really good game management to see it out.

“There was loads in there today which makes it a really good win.”

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On the winner, which saw Amis Mehemti and Kasey McAteer combined ahead of Davis heading home, McKenna enthused: “I loved the goal. There was really a long passage of possession before that which was what we needed to do to sort of calm the game down again. Anis loses the ball but his counter-pressure was brilliant, which it has been since he came in the door, and he wins it back straight away.

“I loved the relationship between him and Kasey. They’re two new team mates but there was an understanding exactly what each other wanted. It’s a great ball from Kasey and we had good bodies in the box. Chuba (Akpom) and Hirsty (George Hirst) are both in there, which is how we wanted to chase the game, they bring all the defenders underneath it and Leif comes around the back post with a big header. It’s a brilliant goal to win the game.”

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Town’s away form has been patchy this season, there have been questions about character and plenty of angst voiced following a quiet end to the transfer window.

With all the above in mind, could this be an important moment in the campaign?

“I’ve said all along that the group generally is improving,” said McKenna.

“We have to go through some things as a group to be the team that we want to be.

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“We’ve been through some things, we have to keep taking the lessons and keep trying to improve and just go to the next game.

“I thought the last 20 minutes in the Preston game last week was a big step for the group. We chased that game down and, for me, should have had a late winner.

“That was a step and today is a step. There are 16 games left and they’re all going to be tough, so we take the lessons from today.

“We know we’ve got some really, really tough games coming up and an incredible schedule, so we’re going to have to keep showing a lot of good things we showed today.”

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