Swansea City's penalty hero Andy Fisher has credited goalkeeping coach Dean Thornton for his spot-kick save at Bloomfield Road - adding he can't stop laughing about it.
It was a much-improved performance from Russell Martin's men against the Seasiders following morale-sapping defeats to Blackburn Rovers and Oxford United in midweek.
Swansea started the game with far better tempo than in previous matches but no breakthrough could be reached, and when Harry Darling was adjudged to have brought down Kenny Dougall in the Swansea box early in the second half, a feeling of dread encroached over supporters.
But Fisher stood up to the task in superb fashion, saving Jerry Yates' effort to keep the scores tied at 0-0. And when Olivier Ntcham slotted home in the 87th minute in Lancashire, the sighs of relief could be heard all the way back in SA1.
Fisher was left chuckling in his post-match interview.
“I can’t stop laughing!” Fisher said of his penalty save.
“I think in the first half, we should have got a goal. We are getting chances, and I think the goals will start to come but they’re just not falling for us at the moment.
“The second half, the crowd was getting behind them and then they got the penalty. I was just happy to save it, and for us to go on a get the three points.
“I’ll give Deano [Thornton] all the credit. He told me that [Yates] goes left, right, left, right, left, right (alternating sides when taking penalties) so naturally I need to go left to follow his routine.
“I actually think he went down the middle, so I don’t know if he [Thornton] gets the credit or not - but I did go left and I saved it.”
Swansea move on to back-to-back home games now against Millwall and Luton Town, with Fisher believing momentum will have to be built on in the coming weeks.
He also paid tribute to the travelling Jack Army, describing them as "unreal".
“First half, I thought we were relentless attacking the goal, but in the second half I think we tried too many long balls and played into their hands really,” he added. “We came away from what we’re good at and what we need to keep doing, but to go on and win the game was massive for us.
“Winning any game in this league is hard, so to get that under our belt is massive. Once you get the momentum going, you’ll start to pick up the points and hopefully we’ll kick on from there.
“I want to say the fans were unreal, too. After the penalty when they were singing my name, it just makes you want to go and win the game for them. They’ve travelled so far and they deserve it.
“The fans are massive for us, when they’re cheering us on, we all just want to win for them.”
Fisher was given WalesOnline's star man award in the ratings, with his head coach also delighted with the stopper's display.
"We started the second half really poorly," Martin admitted. "He dives [for the penalty] and Blackpool had a really good spell. Fish saves the penalty, and he's been great, it's a great moment for him.
"We got a bit flustered and I think the tension of not winning a game adds to that. But we finally got a foothold in the game again and we were the team that looked like scoring. They had a couple of moments on the counter.
"We need to be better than we were in the second half, but I loved so much about the performance, the supporters and we kept a clean sheet."
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