Jon Dahl Tomasson hailed his side’s resilience after battling to a narrow victory against Watford at Vicarage Road.

Ryan Hedges got the decisive goal, firing home from a tight angle during the second half after pouncing on a loose ball.

The hosts were twice denied by the woodwork and couldn’t find an equaliser despite their pressure late on.

“I am delighted with the result and the performance,” said Tomasson. “We knew up front, coming to Watford with those quality players they have, it could be difficult to dominant the game on the ball.

“Normally I want to do that so we needed great organisation and high discipline. You saw all my boys working hard and defending really well.

“When you can keep Watford away from goal like we did – a clean sheet and only three shots on target – the team have done a lot of good things.

“Those transition moments were key to the game. I think we had five or six moments in the first half where the quality in our passing and our decision making was not good.

“I was disappointed we weren’t leading two or three nil by half time because there were some key moments.

“In the second half, we scored a goal from one of those moments. We probably could have scored a couple more goals but the resilience, attitude and discipline was excellent from the players.”

Tomasson is usually keen to control possession and dictate the play but was pleased to see a different approach pay off against the Hornets.

“I don’t want to talk about budgets but there are probably 18 to 20 teams who have a bigger budget than we do, so we knew they had good players,” the boss continued.

“But we did really well in defending and I am just disappointed we didn’t take those transitional moments because there was a lot of space to play football.

“Normally we play a dominant game with the ball and be extremely front-footed without the ball, and today we chose something else. It is good we can do that as well.”

Republic of Ireland Under-21 midfielder Andrew Moran came off the bench following his loan move from Brighton.

Meanwhile, Pat Gamble and Tom Bloxham were named on the bench in the league for the first time.

“We had three teenagers who had a big impact in the game and we also had three on the bench,” Tomasson stated.

“It is great to see that Moran chose Blackburn and Brighton chose Blackburn because we have a quite similar way of playing football on the ball.

“He is, of course, a player who plays between the lines. He can play one or two touches and create chances or score goals.

“It was great to see him getting his first minutes and great to see an excellent performance.”