Peterborough United assistant manager Kieran Scarff praised his side’s players for digging in to achieve a 2-1 victory against Stevenage at the Weston Homes Stadium on Saturday.

He did, however, admit that performance levels were way below where they would be expected to be. Posh took the lead after just five minutes thanks to Donay O’Brien-Brady’s first career goal, but were made to sweat due to some lax defending which gifted the visitors chances.

Louis Thompson pulled Stevenage level after 64 minutes, but Posh found enough in the tank to steal all three points with the final kick of the game when Kwame Poku slammed in a loose ball from a corner.

Posh moved up slightly to 14th in the standings, but such are the tight margins, they are only two points off sixth place after 10 games after a win that saw the return of Joel Randall to the squad.

Peterborough United players celebrate the winning goal. Photo: Joe Dent.

placeholder image — Peterborough United players celebrate the winning goal. Photo: Joe Dent.

Scarff, who was on post-match media duties rather than boss Darren Ferguson, praised his players for getting the win but admitted that the performance left much to be desired.

Scarff said: “The result is always the most important thing and if you’re going to score a winner, scoring it that late is always a nice feeling, but there are plenty of things for us to look at. To be brutally honest, we did not do enough to earn the three points. The performance levels weren’t what we would want them to be, but credit to the players as they dug in and found a way.

“Donay started the game well. I thought he could have shot just before he did, but he showed good composure and it’s a good finish. With the way we play, at that point, we would fully expect to get control of the game, especially at home, but the intensity of our play - certainly out of possession - wasn’t what we wanted it to be. Consequently, we let them build momentum at certain times of the game and that did cause us a problem.

“Joel Randall did well. He made a difference to us, certainly in the early part of the second half, when we were getting him the ball because he took up some really good spaces. He enjoys that space and he played with good energy and gave us some good impetus.

Ricky-Jade Jones in action with Nathan Thompson of Stevenage. Photo: Joe Dent.

“We weren’t good enough on the ball though. We kept giving it away. We will play the way we want to play, but we have to be better at it. At times, there was some last ditch defending and some really good goalkeeping from Jed Steer at key moments that kept us in the game. Jed was good today, really aggressive and made some big saves.”

Posh face Stevenage again on Tuesday (October 8) in the EFL Trophy and can be expected to field a much-changed side. They will return to League One action on Saturday (October 12) at home to Rotherham. The Millers beat 10-man Reading 2-1 on Saturday, a second win in succession.