Gregan special seals North End win Norwich City 1 Preston North End 2 IN FOOTBALL as in any walk of life, from time to time there comes a moment when an individual will produce something special, something different.

Preston skipper Sean Gregan did that at Carrow Road in this match.

With the match very delicately balanced at 1-1, five minutes into the second half, Norwich lost the ball on the half way line and it fell into the path of Gregan.

He sized up the situation immediately with great speed of thought, seeing goalkeeper Andy Marshall was slightly off his line.

From all of fifty yards, Sean Gregan sent the ball hurtling across the murky skies above the pitch towards the Norwich goal.

The ball seemed to hang on the wind as Marshall tried to position himself to deal with the shot, up went a white gloved hand towards the ball and there was a moment of silence from around the ground as the ball approached the net.

Then, David Healy, the Preston striker who was closest to goal spun round in celebration. Gregan's shot had hit the back of the net and as the Preston skipper disappeared under an avalanche of white shirted colleagues, the PNE supporters went absolutely crackers.

It was a match winner as Norwich disappeared without trace after this excellent piece of skill and Preston took the points. However, it looked different in the opening half hour as both defences were on top, restricting chances to a minimum and neither goalkeeper was seriously tested.

Then, from a slow build up Norwich City took the lead when Chris Llewellyn got away down the left and hit over a cross which Colin Murdock, despite the attention of Iwan Roberts, seemed to have covered.

Murdock appeared to lose the flight of the ball, failed to get a contact with his head and the ball was neatly chested down by Roberts before before he hammered the ball beyond Moilanen for a well taken goal.

While the Norwich fans were still celebrating the goal, Preston hit back to get on level terms.

Rob Edwards sprinted away down the left past a couple of tackles and got to the left hand corner of the box before floating in a teasing cross into a crowded penalty box.

Norwich's tall defenders looked favourites to clear the ball until David Healy met the ball with his head and he directed a powerful effort on goal that left Andy Marshall flat footed on his goal-line for a very good goal.

The scores were level at half-time, then came Sean Gregan special and from here on it was always North End who looked more likely to score.

Healy shot wide after being perfectly set up by Mark Rankine and Paul McKenna wasn't far away with a shot from Lee Cartwright's's cross.

Norwich, urged on by their supporters, worked hard to try to get an equaliser but Preston were in no mood to surrender the lead and the back four and the took a stranglehold on the match.

Jon Macken and David Healy looked impressive up front, Richard Cresswell looked the part when he came on as substitute for Jon Macken, as Ryan Kidd did when he came on at half-time for Colin Murdock who had earlier been shown the yellow card for a tackle on Adrian Forbes. When you look for a "man of the match" then I suppose that you would look to Sean Gregan for his excellent goal.

On this occasion, despite the match winner from Gregan, two other North End players stood out in a very good team.

Rob Edwards was brilliant and so again was Lee Cartwright operating in midfield with some great runs at the Norwich defence that caused the home side problems all afternoon.

North End have now cruised to fifth place in the division and look solid bets for a place in the play-offs come the season's end. It is a wonderful time to be a supporter of Preston North End as a fascinating season builds to fever pitch promising a great finale.

It really is there for the taking and every Preston fan knows it.

Asked if it was the best goal of hii career so far Gregan said: "I don't score many, but yes, that just has to be my best. I didn't know the ball had gone in until I saw the keeper wasn't gong behind the goal to get the ball."

On the performance boss David Moyes said: "We played very well, we deserved to win and the goal from Sean Gregan was excellent."

Asked about the play-offs and promotion Moyes said: "We shall just keep on going, we are not getting carried away, but we are enjoying where we are."