ANY game in front of a watching national audience can be a tricky proposition.

But on Friday night in deepest, darkest South Yorkshire, the Clarets went about their business and nicked a win against a struggling Rotherham United side who have spent much of the last week looking for a new boss following the departure of Steve Evans.

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I said last week that I felt the last half an hour in the defeat to Reading — who notched up another win on Saturday at home to high-flying Middlesbrough — could have been the turning point with Joey Barton instrumental in pulling the strings.

On his first start for the club, former QPR and Manchester City midfielder Barton turned in a man-of-the-match performance and gave the travelling Burnley faithful not only a peek at what is to come but a first real look at the new Saint Joey.

Kicked around the park for pretty much the whole time he was on the pitch, Barton was calmness personified and it was that calmness that helped us secure all three points on a first visit to the wonderfully-named New York Stadium.

There wasn’t much of the glitz and glamour one would usually associate with the Big Apple and, if we’re honest, we did make harder work of it than it needed to be.

But an away win is an away win and even after all the other results this weekend, we’re just two points off a place in the top two.

We had chances. Plenty of them.

But in the end a second Clarets goal for Andre Gray — a delicate dink over the onrushing Lee Camp — and a close-range strike from Sam Vokes were enough either side of a wordly strike for the home side from Grant Ward.

Managerless Rotherham threatened only briefly and aside from a smart save from England goalie Tom Heaton (that sounds good, doesn’t it?) they rarely threatened.

We looked more dominant in the first half than we have in recent weeks, but we do need to start killing teams off when in charge.

I’ve been convinced for a while that a side is going to be on the end of a pasting from us soon and the Millers should feel actually lucky it wasn’t them.