Watford win typified Burnley spirit - Jack Cork

The Clarets, remarkably, recovered from a goal down away from home in the Premier League to win for the first time, with Cork scoring his first goal in three and a half years to level matters, before Josh Brownhill claimed the winner.

It meant a third-successive victory for the side, who have claimed 10 points from 12 under interim boss Mike Jackson after the departure of Sean Dyche, and put Burnley above Leeds on goal difference, and five points clear of Everton, who pulled that back to two with a 1-0 win over an insipid Chelsea on Sunday.

And Cork, restored to the side by Jackson, feels the character in the dressing room is crucial: “It’s been a difficult couple of weeks for us, there’s been a lot going on at the club, we had the manager, who had been such a big part of the club, leaving, and we had the big thing with (Ashley Westwood) Westy’s injury, which was hard for everyone in the dressing room because we’re such a close group.

“The game typifies us as a team, when things aren’t going well, we stay in games, we hang on and never give up, and we weren’t at our best, especially first half, but we got there in the end.

“First half they were really on top of us, and second half they dropped off and let us have a lot of the ball, and I think if they had kept the same tempo up as the first half, we might not have got anything.

“But the way the game flowed second half, it suited us and we had a couple of chances.

“We probably would have taken a point, to be honest, but a win is amazing.”

Burnley fell behind to an unfortunate own goal from James Tarkowski, but having had a penalty overturned by VAR in the first half, before substitute Ashley Barnes had a header touched onto the bar in the second, Cork insists the players never felt it wasn’t going to be their day: “We could have felt sorry for ourselves any time this season, any time in the last five years, but that isn’t the club.

"We’ve had ups and downs but this is an experienced group that don’t give up.

“The fans gave us so much, they have the last two home games, but you could see from the start, they filled all those seats and made it a real good atmosphere.”

Asked what the difference has been under Jackson, with a quite incredible reversal of fortunes, Cork said: “It’s just the reality of the situation, when the manager leaves, things are at their lowest point, but we’ve got a good group and know the quality we have.

“It’s just getting everything straight again and going in the right direction, and digging in.

“We’ve got a good shape, we work from the shape and everyone has worked hard.

“The previous manager was amazing and great for us, it’s hard to say someone is doing something better, because he was great for us and I can’t say a bad word about him.

“Sometimes it’s just that change, it was the shock of him losing the job and how low the club was feeling at the time.

“It looked quite bleak, and we went ‘look, we have nothing to lose, the manager has gone, we’ve had a few injuries, let’s just stick in it’.

“Maybe a change of voice and realising the situation we were in changed things.

“We maybe needed that.”

And on his superb diving header – adding to his collection of headed goals for the club – he smiled: “I don’t know about lung-busting!

"But it’s nice, I saw Charlie (Taylor) pick up the ball and was hoping he’d sort of over-hit it a little bit and luckily enough no one runs with you.

“It was nice timing and a nice goal, I thought I was going to smash into the post, so thank god I didn’t.

“We’ve not seen that for a while from me, I’ve not had one of those for a while!

It just set up nicely, I saw Browny was back a little hit and it gave me time to bomb on, so I threw everything at it.

“Browny’s was a nice goal as well, very calm finish, and he’s been great recently as well.

“But the game changed second half, they have a lot of good players, fast players, that out a lot of pressure on us and made it very difficult to turn them and get out.

“Second half the tempo dropped, and they gave us more of the ball and it was a completely different game.

“I didn’t think it was going to drop for us, but it is what it is, it’s us, we dug in and got a win.”

Four years ago, Burnley trailed 1-0 at Watford at half-time, but recovered to win 2-1 with goals from Cork and Sam Vokes on the way to qualifying for the Europa League, and Cork added: “It was like a few years ago going for Europe, they battered us first half and we got a couple of late goals, me and Vokesy.

“But that’s been us for the last five years, we’ve had a lot of bad things said about us at times, but it’s our habit to ignore it and crack on and do what we do.”