Boss Ryan Lowe hails never say die attitude of PNE players after come from behind win against Stoke City

Ben Wilmot had opened the scoring for the Potters in the second half with a thunderbolt from 30 yards, the centre back picking out the top corner leaving Daniel Iversen no chance in the PNE goal.

Brad Potts levelled the scoring, forward from right wing back on his return to the side, with a scissor kick, lashing the ball past Adam Davies in the Stoke net who barely saw it as it flew past him.

Andrew Hughes won it with less than 10 minutes to go, heading home a Ben Whiteman corner before wheeling away in front of a sold out away following.

Having gone a goal down to a wonder strike, PNE could have folded but isntead their new boss was delighted with their response.

"We've been done by a fantastic goal and then to go and go and go, we had them on the back foot, the ascendancy was with us," Lowe said.

"It was a great goal and a great strike from Potts and to top it off - I actually asked Hughes if he had scored and I said he could score his first today - and he did.

"They're well worked. We give the players the information on how we think we can win the game and they go and execute it.

"When you've got the belief and we've got the never say die attitude in there, we went behind to a fantastic goal on their behalf but I thought we dominated large parts.

"They went from back to front quite quick and we knew that would be the case.

"I said to the lads at half time that if they got the ball down and stepped it up just 10 or 15 per cent the game would be there for you to go and win."

Lowe's men followed his first win in his first home game against Barnlsey with a win in his first away game at the Bet365 Stadium.

Potts' goal was his first since an equaliser against Norwich City towards the end of last season, in Frankie McAvoy's first game as interim head coach.

Hughes' came on his 300th career appearance and both his and North End's no.44 benefited from work done on the training ground according to Lowe.

He said: "The first goal comes from us playing out from the back, into Ben Whiteman, who plays it out wide to Josh Earl and Daniel Johnson makes an '8' run as we call them, he gets down the outside and clips a ball over to the other wing back to get the goal.

"It was a fantastic volley - Di Canio-eque, if you like.

"He's got his hands up already, as soon as that ball gets to that end we want the opposite wing back getting into the box and that's what he did.

"He had his hand up ready for it and he picked a fantastic position and scores a fantastic goal.

"We'd worked on set pieces, we had two good corners and then scored from a fantastic set piece for the second.

"It was a nice pinged ball in from Ben Whiteman and Hughes is there to get his head on it."

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