Irvine urges caution after victory

The 51-year-old Scot made a flying start to life as Wednesday manager with victory in his first game in charge - 18 days after being surprisingly sacked by Preston - as the Owls clinched a 2-1 success at Oakwell in a typically hard-fought derby.It could hardly have begun in better fashion for Irvine when defender Tommy Spurr slammed home from close range in the third minute.Barnsley's Iceland international Emil Hallfredsson levelled for the Tykes four minutes later when his curling cross to the far post arced over stranded Wednesday goalkeeper Lee Grant.But Owls winger Jermaine Johnson earned the visitors their first win in 12 league matches with a stunning angled volley midway through the first period.Irvine said: "It was a great start, absolutely terrific. It was a great performance by the lads, great application - but it's only a start."If they feel as if that's it and everything's going to be ok from now, then we'll end up having problems."They've set the benchmark in terms of how they need to go about games and it's up to us to make sure we don't fall below those levels of commitment and determination."Wednesday crashed out of the FA Cup at Hillsborough in front of less than 9,000 fans in their last match, but responded with raucous backing for Irvine and their side at Oakwell.Irvine said: "They were terrific, absolutely fantastic. The noise they generated throughout the game was something special."Irvine is now determined to build on the victory over Mark Robins' side.Irvine said: "The players have been as I would expect, it's the honeymoon period."They've been terrific and worked very hard and very receptive to the things we've managed to get done."We need points as quickly as we get get them, so getting off to that start is absolutely fantastic, but we need a lot of wins to secure our Championship status and that's one of them."The former Everton winger has targeted 53 points in order to guarantee Wednesday's survival.Barnsley manager Mark Robins had been looking up towards the play-offs before successive league defeats which have threatened to undermine his side's progress.But Robins felt his side did not deserve to lose a match that was, particularly after the interval, short on guile and skill.Robins said: "It was a typical derby game. There was a lot of passion and a lot of commitment and endeavour."But sometimes there wasn't enough control or skill from both sides."You ask the question did Sheffield Wednesday beat us today but I think we beat ourselves."We shot ourselves in the foot too many times. We got ourselves back into the game with a rather fortunate goal and conceded two poor goals which puts you on the back foot."But we had the ball in their area enough to get a couple more goals."We had more possession in the second half, threw everything at them and didn't really deserve to lose the game."

Source: Team_Talk