Sam says Peterborough United can take confidence and momentum into next season

It was a second hard-earned point of the Easter weekend for Posh and, coupled with a home defeat for Bristol Rovers, it was enough to be sure of safety with three games still to play.

Ricky-Jade Jones fired Posh ahead with Jon Russell claiming a superb equaliser on the stroke of half-time for Barnsley. Jones is now one of SIX Posh players ruled out of the last three League One games against Bolton (home, April 26), Mansfield (away, April 30) and Rotherham (away, May 3).

Long injury list

Hughes was signed on loan from League One rivals Stockport County In January and he was a huge factor in the defensive improvement seen in the second half of the season.

"I know the objectives were very different at the start of the season given the record of the club in the last few seasons,” Hughes said. “But sometimes you have to find new objectives, and we found ourselves in a difficult position, so to make sure we are still in League One next season is massive.

"The group have really kicked on and they can take confidence and momentum from the last 15-20 matches into the next season. We enjoyed some very good wins and the two draws against Stockport and Barnsley were not bad results either. The lads did unbelievably well to win at Wembley, but the gaffer always said that was the least important game we had left.

"We still had a massive job to do as things can change quickly in football. Two defeats could have put us on the back foot and right in a dogfight, but I always felt it was only a matter of time before we could stop worrying about how teams below us were doing.

"We started well at Barnsley and we could have hurt them more in transition than we did. We got a bit sloppy, but we can’t be too critical as more often than not we’ve been clinical this season as the number of goals we have scored shows. We scored a good goal, but a bit of naivety at the end of the first half cost us the equaliser. We could have just put the ball in the channel to see us to half time.

"We didn’t have the control we would have liked in the second half, but we knew what was at stake and we got the result we needed.”