Delighted boss Neil Harris paid tribute to the “outstanding togetherness” of his Cardiff squad as they clinically put strugglers Huddersfield to the sword.
First-half goals from Josh Murphy and Will Vaulks did the bulk of the damage as the Bluebirds cruised at the John Smith’s Stadium and climbed two places in the Sky Bet Championship.
Callum Paterson scored a third in the 69th minute to put the game out of reach as Harris’ confident side extended their impressive league run to just one defeat from their last 11 matches.
“I thought it was a really good away performance,” said the Cardiff manager.
“You can see the togetherness in the group is outstanding and once we went ahead we were a real threat on the counter-attack.
“You have to find different ways to win sometimes and today we were good on the counter-attack.
“Without the ball the first line of defence is hard to break down. Huddersfield had some really good patterns of play and really work for their manager, but they’ve had no real clear-cut chances and that’s good for us as a group.”
Harris reserved special praise for the influential Lee Tomlin, who was instrumental in much of the visitors’ best work as the Bluebirds kept the pressure on the leading bunch.
“You’ve seen for yourselves how good he is at that moment,” Harris said. “He’s always had that quality on the ball.
“But we’re not going to get carried away. We’re on a good run of form.
“I’ve talked about turning draws into wins and we’ve done that against Luton and again tonight.
“We’re getting into a nice position but you have to keep doing it at this level. We have a chance of the play-offs but it’s just about winning games.
“A lot of those lads have won promotion before and want to do it again, but that’s a long way off.
“We’ve won two games on the spin and we’re undefeated in a long time. It’s enjoyable coming to the training ground and the players enjoy it.
“We had a busy window and the group is really focused and happy. There’s a really good feeling about the place and we need to continue that.”
Defeat for Huddersfield means they are still five points adrift of safety.
Frustrated Terriers boss Danny Cowley was at a loss as to why his misfiring side failed to deliver.
“It’s a disappointing result for sure,” Cowley said. “I thought we had good control until the 24th minute, and then they scored with their first two touches in our box.
“Ultimately, football games are won in both boxes.
“We played some decent stuff in the middle third, but we had too many players coming towards the ball and we didn’t stretch the game enough. We shouldn’t have nearly 70 per cent possession and lose 3-0.
“We got the ball to the final third time and time again, but we didn’t have enough penetration.
“We were powder-puff in attacking positions – and you don’t win football matches when you’re like that. It’s something we’ve got to go and have a look at.
“We got picked off on the counter-attack, but it’s hard because we don’t want to be nearly men. The supporters don’t want to hear excuses but we’ve been beaten 3-0. We have to look at the formula and collectively we all have to do better.
“We missed (leading scorer) Karlan Grant, he’s a big player for us.
“The challenge was never going to be easy, there was always going to be bumps along the road. And I don’t like getting bullied, we’re proud and so are our supporters. We need to do better.”
