Vale’s Nathan Smith believes that the historic comeback victory at Pride Park gives the team “a lot of confidence” after the centre-half played an integral role in the 2-1 win.
Speaking to the press after his impressive display, our number six spoke about how the team picked themselves up from the early setbacks to win in Derbyshire.
Smith said: “After starting the way, we did, putting ourselves on the back foot, finally getting a penalty to get back into the game, not quite going the way we wanted.
“Going in at half-time we thought we’re well in the game, we just said to stay in it as long as possible, keep putting them under pressure and the chances will still come, and we will capitalise on it then.
“Then we come back into the game, the fans came alive, and after that, it was a little bit of a blur, we just pushed and pushed, and we got the win.
“A great day, and a well-deserved win in my opinion.”
The team showed a lot of character in the second period to come back from one down, and the character they showed to get the victory is something they showed a lot of in the last campaign.
“We just go back to last season, the amount of times we came back from behind, what we dealt with last year, it’s a testament to the lads that have come in to join us,” said our centre-half.
“We [have] the same sort of characteristics that we had in the changing room last year.
“After the last few weeks, not getting the results we wanted, we could have gone hiding and it could have been another one of those afternoons, but we pulled together, we kept piling on the pressure and I think it was only a matter of time [until we] got a goal back.”
Smith was involved in the incident that saw Derby’s goal scorer, James Collins, sent off after his reaction to a tackle from the defender.
On the incident, Smith said: “It was just a bit of an altercation in the box, I'm not quite sure what connected with my face, but it came keen.
“The ten men perhaps changed the game, but it’s about time we had a bit of fortune with the penalties, 73 games, was it?”
The side encountered two losses to tough opposition going into this fixture, so this win showed what the Vale can do against top-quality sides.
“Perhaps take Peterborough out of the equation, every time we have played a top team that’s supposedly meant to do well, we’ve come close, matched them, and perhaps deserved points we didn’t get,” explained the 26-year-old
“It just gives a lot of confidence to the lads that we are not out of place here in this league, but we know that it’s not an easy ride, we have a lot of things to work on, and we can improve.
“It’s not the best of us you’ve seen.”