Barnsley manager Michael Duff paid tribute to his players after they beat Burton 2-0 following a bug which affected various members of the squad during the week.

Devante Cole’s double made it five straight wins in League One to keep them in fourth place.

The home side’s pressure finally paid off when Cole opened the scoring from close range in the 36th minute and the striker struck again 17 minutes from time.

Duff said: “I’m delighted. There are people who have been really ill in the week and if you go in the dressing room, it’s like a pack of dogs with people barking all over the place.

“You saw that probably in the game when the energy dropped a little bit in the second half.

“It was a scrappy game but I thought there was some good football played within it.

“It won’t get many headlines but it’s a difficult game. They’ve drawn their last four, they make it horrible, they make it scrappy.

“I thought the two halves were completely different but I thought we looked relatively comfortable.

“In the first half I thought we were much the better team and I was disappointed because it could have been more.

“In the second half they had a bit more pressure but Brad’s [Collins] not made a save and we had lots of opportunities on the counter-attack but we didn’t make quite the right final pass or the right shot.”

On Cole’s contribution, Duff added: “He doesn’t score enough tap-ins – we’ve said that to him.

“I think he deserves it because with his overall game he probably deserves to be on more goals than he is. He’s a little bit frustrated with his tally.”

Burton boss Dino Maamria was left to lament conceding two ‘soft’ goals.

He said: “Of course it’s disappointing when you lose a game.

“Barnsley is a tough place to come to – they’re top of the form table over the last five or six games and they’ve got good players.

“But I thought that in the first half-an-hour, we were in total control and they didn’t cause us any problems.

“I think the first goal came from nothing. I didn’t think we defended really well in terms of stopping the cross.

“I thought in the second half, for a good 20-25 minutes, we played in their half and created some problems for them.

“Again, goals change momentum and change games, and we conceded another goal. It was very, very similar to the first one. It came as a blow to us.

“Overall, it’s disappointing to lose after being solid as a team in the last four league games.

“I feel disappointed with the goals we conceded. They were really, really soft goals.”