And the second tier table-toppers had to dig deep against Stoke City to maintain their unbeaten start to the season on Tuesday night.
Boro struggled to reach the standards they’ve set in the hugely impressive first couple of months of the season. And yet they still emerged with a clean sheet, a point and their advantage at the Championship summit unchanged.
Stoke, like Boro, have exceeded expectations so far this season and showed why at the Riverside. A point was the least they deserved but after a second half in which they were significantly more threatening than the home side, visiting boss Mark Robins will have been frustrated he didn’t leave with three.
Boro were flat, perhaps fatigued and it didn’t click going forward but such are the strong foundations from which Edwards has built his side, even when they’re below-par as an attacking force, there’s the steel, organisation and resilience to at least pick up a point. Sol Brynn had his busiest and best game of the season in goal.
There were no full-time scenes of celebration but Edwards and his players still set off on a full lap around the pitch thanking the fans. The head coach was the last one off the pitch. Edwards has stressed the point that single points can be crucial this season.
Edwards has repeatedly demonstrated his willingness to be brave with his decision-making in the early weeks of the season, so it should have come as no real surprise that Boro’s head coach opted to change shape, despite his side’s unbeaten start to the season. Or that he turned to Sammy Silvera rather than Dael Fry when George Edmundson was forced off injured after just six minutes. That, though, will likely have been a case of Edwards taking extra care with Fry, back in the squad for the first time after his three-game absence with a calf injury, rather than a tactical decision.
Boro started in a back four rather than the three that has served Edwards well in the opening stages of the campaign, and stayed in the new shape despite Edmundson’s early exit, another major blow for the centre-half who has had his fair share of injury setbacks and will have been desperate to nail down a place in the XI and get a run in the side. Captain Luke Ayling, who started at right-back, moved inside to centre-half to accommodate Silvera at right-back.
Despite the need to tinker early on, Boro started well and twice went close in the opening quarter of an hour, Hayden Hackney testing Viktor Johansson from distance before David Strelec dug out a shot from the right side of the box that was clawed away by the visiting keeper.
As the first half progressed, Boro and Rob Edwards grew increasingly exasperated with referee David Webb. The home side were adamant they should have had a penalty for a Ben Pearson challenge on Tommy Conway. Webb instead booked the striker for diving and two minutes later further frustrated Edwards when the head coach dashed out of his technical area to rush the ball back to Silvera to take a quick throw-in, only for the official to demand it be retaken just two yards further back.
It was Silvera who teased a ball across the face late in the first half but all three Boro forwards made the same run. Webb did nothing to get out of Edwards’ bad books when he opted against booking Lamine Cisse despite a foul stopping Boro in their tracks when they had a numerical advantage in a stoppage time counter attack from a Stoke corner.
Conway was still complaining to Webb as he made his way off at the end of a first half in which Stoke had failed to muster a shot on target.
That changed just 60 seconds after the interval when Sorba Thomas cut in from the left and took aim for the far corner but was denied by a superb save from Sol Brynn at full stretch.
The unmarked Morris should have at least forced a save out of Johansson at the other end but blazed over from inside the penalty area.
Edwards has made of habit of turning to his bench early, but it was Robins who was first to act when he made two half-time substitutes. And what the visiting boss did and said at the break appeared to have had an impact. After the Thomas effort, Eric Bocat wasn’t far away with a shot from distance that flashed just wide. Stoke substitute Tomas Rigo was running the game.  Sloppy Boro couldn’t get a grip of the game and as the clock ticked past the hour mark, Edwards sat in the dugout in deep conversation with Adi Viveash plotting a way to turn the tide. Sontje Hansen and Kaly Sene were introduced, the former setting off on one instant dash down the right and a low drive across the face.
It was a Bosun Lawal cross from the right that should have led to the opening goal of the game for Stoke, the unmarked Robert Bozenik dragging his shot wide of Brynn’s right post. It was the striker’s last touch. He was replaced before play resumed.
Stoke looked the more likely victors but Brynn denied Rigo from 10 yards after a Thomas cut-back and kept out substitute Divin Mubama deep in stoppage time.