Gary Mac certainly rang the changes tonight, with just the front two and Frazer surviving the cut from Saturday's game at Yeovil. Much of the recent criticism has of course centred around the midfield and an entirely new quartet of Douglas, Delph, Hughes and Kilkenny took the field this evening.

From the opening exchanges it was clear that we were intent on trying to play good football and, as the lads found their rhythm, we were starting to carve Palace open almost at will. On ten minutes we were rewarded when an excellent header from Beckford on the edge of the box put the alert Jonathan Douglas clean through to nudge the ball past the visiting keeper for 1-0.

Palace tried to press forward, but their attacks were efficiently nullified by our back four who looked a good, solid unit against Palace's 3 man attack, despite never having played together before (or in young White's case, ever before). Aside from a handful of corners which were comfortably defended, Lucas in goal had little to do.

On the attack we were swift, incisive and, at times, an absolute delight to watch. The pick of the bunch for me was Becchio who won every header, laid off some delightful flicks for Beckford (a good understanding is building up between those two) and Palace were really struggling to contain him.

As the half wore on, we were creating an embarrassment of chances. One excellently worked free kick from the bi-line just outside the box saw a goal bound Beckford effort scrambled round the post for a corner. And from that corner Beckford arrived late into the box to plant an unstoppable header into the bottom corner for 2-0. No more than we deserved.

Whatever Neil Warnock said to his disillusioned troops at half-time clearly failed miserably as the second half began in much the same vein as the first. A few minutes in and a gorgeous ball out to the right from Douglas found Frazer, whose excellent cross was bundled home by Beccio for a much deserved goal.

After that we generally sat back, relying on break-aways for further chances, whilst defending with the utmost competence at the other end.

Beccio gave way to Showumni who had a hattrick of chances - two gilt edged ones which he missed, sandwiched around a seemingly impossible half-chance which he somehow converted. The first of his three chances was the product of another swift breakaway, culminating in Beckford playing him clean through, 8 yards out with just the keeper to beat and poor Enoch somehow contrived to hit the ball near enough for the keeper to save, with the entire goal at his mercy.

Two minutes later he collected the ball on the left edge of the box, jinked about a bit and fired a superb and unlikely finish through a huge crowd of players into the bottom corner for 4-0.

Five minutes later and he again found himself clean through and one-on-one with the keeper, but fluffed the chance as he froze like the proverbial rabbit in the headlights - though I have to say, if I ever caught sight of a rabbit that big in my headlights, I'd be cleaning the c-rap out of the inside of my car for the following month.

The game drifted to a comfortable close - our one moment of danger when a rare error from Telfer allowed the Palace forward to round Lucas - but his shot was headed off the line from the intelligently positioned Bradley Johnson.

My final analysis....well, obviously it was a tremendously welcome victory... but we must also view it with a pinch of realism. Palace played a 4-3-3 system allowing us an embarrassing amount of room in the middle of the park to get our passing game going. Likewise, they were clearly under instruction not to tackle hard or kill themselves trying to close space down. This gave us the perfect opportunity to show what we can do with a football and boy did we take it! As they say, you can only play against what's put in front of you and we certainly did that - it is very, VERY unlikely though, that we will have anything like the time and the space when we play Bristol Rovers on Saturday.

Still, that's no reason not to enjoy an excellent evening and a memorable and (hopefully) confidence boosting victory against Championship opposition.

Player Ratings (6=Average)

Lucas - had little to do - coped calmly and efficiently with the handful of crossed which came his way - 6.5
Richardson - good all round captain's performance - part of a very solid back four unit - 8
Lubo - similar to Frazer - 8
Telfer - very, very impressed with him. Calm head and was clearly playing a good organisational role - 9
White - couldn't ask more from the youngster on his debut. Didn't offer too much coming forward, but a very solid and competent game - 7.5
Hughes - probably the weakest of the 4 midfielders. Battled well, but was anonymous for long periods - 6
Douglas - excellent game, good goal, some great defensive work - 8.5
Kilkenny - Pick of the midfielders for me - turned up everywhere - 9
Delph - excellent performance - would love to see him and Killa in on Saturday - 8.5
Beckford - slightly lazy (as ever) took his goal well and made some other worthy contributions - 7.5
Beccio - man of the match for me - a constant threat - his long hair and the number 10 on his back remind me of my boyhood hero, Tony Currie. Has made strides towards becoming a legend tonight - long may it continue - 9.5

Subs

Showumni - apart from a well taken goal, I thought he was rather poor. Failed to win a single header against the same centre half that Beccio (who is six inches smaller than Enoch in more ways than one) slaughtered in the air all evening - 5
Johnson & Howson - not really on long enough to pass judgement. Would have liked to see Johnson in midfield rather than left back though

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