Peterborough United star Jack Taylor on brilliant support, Mr Muscle and a mobile midfield

Taylor won the sponsors’ man-of-the-match prize after another dominant personal display as Posh eased to a 1-0 win to make it nine points from three games in eight days.

Posh remain fourth in League One, but have closed the gap to the top two to six points after collecting 16 points from seven October matches.

An early own goal from Cambridge centre-back Lloyd Jones settled the first clash between the teams in a Football League game for 21 years.

"We were determined to play the game not the occasion,” Taylor said. “We wanted to treat it like a normal game and not fly into tackles early on and pick up silly cautions that meant you couldn’t tackle for 85 minutes.

“But it was obvious how much the game meant to the fans from the moment we came out for the warm-up.

"The players got a real buzz from that. The fans were brilliant and gave us about 20% extra. There is so much riding on a local derby so we were delighted to get the three points to complete a perfect week.

"We were surprised how much they sat off us, but once we got the early goal we settled down and we really should have scored more. Obviously the goal wasn’t planned, but it was good to score from a set-piece as we’ve been looking dangerous from them recently.

"We didn’t really know how to celebrate at first, but we got round each other eventually.

"The midfield is working really well for us with our rotations. We call Jeando Fuchs ‘muscle’ as he’s so small and strong, and he does all the dirty work for me and Harrison. We are very fluent and we picked up a lot of first and second balls which was always going to be important. We focused on getting the basics right before we started doing what we do.

"We didn't kill the game off, but we then defended really well as a unit. We didn’t look like conceding late goals which hasn’t always been the case this season.

"The dressing room was buzzing after the game. The win was massive for us.”

Posh had one second-half scare when Taylor lost possession by the touchline and Cambridge forward Harvey Knibbs set off towards goal, but goalkeeper Lucas Bergstrom made a flying save.

"It was a foul on me,” Taylor insisted. “I felt contact so I went down. Usually that’s a free kick, but maybe the referee wanted to spice things up a bit!”

Posh now have a break from League One action until the trip to Exeter City on Saturday, November 12.

Posh host League Two promotion contenders Salford City in the first round of the FA Cup this Saturday, November 5 (3pm).