IT WASN'T nice, it wasn't pretty - but it was three vital points.

After about an hour of Saturday's match at QPR, things looked to be running away from Saints.

The scores coming in from around the country showed many of Saints' promotion rivals were winning.

Derby, West Brom, Cardiff and Sunderland were all on their way to vital away wins.

Saints, on the other hand, were struggling to make a breakthrough at fourth from bottom QPR.

The pitch was bobbly and very narrow while QPR were dogged and held a good line at the back.

It was more of a scrap than anything else.

But it's being able to turn these potential draws into wins that is so important in the race for promotion.

It was Saints' inability to do just that at home to Burnley the previous weekend that made a win at Loftus Road so important.

With a lot of the top teams to play in a tough looking run-in, getting points on the board now is vital.

The game was hardly a classic, but it doesn't matter from Saints' point of view as long as they won.

The problem at times this season is that they have been knocked out of their stride when they can't play their natural game.

A high tempo passing game is great. But you need the opposition to provide you with a certain amount of room - meaning they look to attack as well - to be able to do it.

The problem is teams who know their players aren't as good at that sort of game as George Burley's men don't want to play that way.

In a different league, Arsenal find similar problems.

The better the team Saints play against, the more it suits them - those are the teams that leave space to play in because they try to play in a similar way.

Unfortunately, there aren't many teams like that in the Championship.

Most of them are like QPR who will pen you into a middle third of the pitch and pump long balls to make the game a fight.

They will hope to nick a goal through a mistake, a set-piece or a one-off individual piece of skill.

Those teams are only playing to their strengths.

If Saints were to get promoted, they may well play like that against a few Premiership teams next season.

But it's hard to play against.

Too often you can get drawn into that type of game and start pumping high balls in return, which plays into the opposition's hands.

As hard as it is, you need to keep the ball and keep playing your game.

You need your full backs to stretch the play as much as possible.

Only by stretching the opposition can you disrupt their solid banks of four.

Saints didn't do that in the first half against QPR, but they did in the second.

The first half was a pretty dismal affair.

Grzegorz Rasiak headed a good early chance wide while Simon Royce made two good saves to his right to prevent Mario Licka, the first from distance and the second a half volley in the area, from scoring.

For all their doggedness, QPR created probably the best chance of the half when Dexter Blackstock found himself through on goal but the former Saint stabbed his shot wide.

Saints had a slight re-shuffle at the break and looked a better team for it.

Rasiak, Jermaine Wright and Darren Powell all came close while Wright hacked away a goalbound Blackstock effort from a corner.

Burley made a double change with 16 minutes left and it swung the game.

David McGoldrick went wide on the right of midfield with Bradley Wright-Phillips going on up front.

Saints eventually broke the deadlock on 81 minutes.

A Gareth Bale right wing corner was spilt by Royce under pressure from Wright-Phillips and Rasiak was on hand to turn it home from two yards out.

QPR complained Royce had been fouled and they had a point.

They were even more furious three minutes later when Kelvin Davis spilt a long throw under pressure from Damion Stewart and Blackstock turned home - only for referee Trevor Kettle to disallow it.

They were carbon copies and either both should have been goals or neither.

But Saints have deserved a bit of luck and it does even itself out.

Wright-Phillips sealed the win with a great goal in injury time.

McGoldrick played a brilliant long ball down the right channel into the path of Wright-Phillips, who didn't even have to break stride to bring it down.

He cut inside his man and rifled a low left-footed shot into the bottom corner.

It doesn't matter how these wins come ... as long as they do arrive.