WITH their ruthless, emphatic demolition of West Brom and Queens Park Rangers, Nottingham Forest outlined their promotion credentials. They established themselves as a side capable of winning a place in the Premiership.

Unfortunately for them, they also sent out a message – if you let this young side play, they will destroy you.

As a result, in their last two games, Forest have found themselves up against Derby and Sheffield Wednesday sides with one simple remit – shutting Billy Davies' side down and stopping them from doing what they do best.

At Pride Park, the battling spirit of Nigel Clough's Rams won through, earning them a victory that, while far from pretty, was more than deserved.

On Saturday, at the City Ground, Forest found sufficient resolve to overcome a Wednesday side that, to be fair, possessed brains as well as brawn.

And manager Davies believes that qualities such as grit and determination are going to be more important than flair, during the final third of the season.

"There are going to be scraps between now and the end of the season and we are going to have to learn to scrap, it is as simple as that," said Davies.

"We did not scrap at Derby. We did not have enough nasty players. This is a young team and it still does not know how to be nasty at the right times.

"Derby had Hulse, Savage and people like that who knew how to do certain things on and off the ball.

"As a young side, our football has been first class. But we are still learning how to scrap and we are still not nasty enough in the dressing room.

"We still need one or two Kenny Burns-type figures in there."

Unfortunately for the Scot, he fears that Forest do not possess players of that ilk.

"I don't think we have people in the dressing room who can do that. We have one or two experienced players, who know how to handle themselves," he said.

"But a real nasty streak? I am not sure we have that at the minute.

"We have shown that we can handle it against Wednesday. We just need to do it on a consistent basis. We let ourselves down against Derby.

"We had to take a grip of the game and learn to battle the corner, but that is only down to the age of this team. They will learn.

"Forest did not win two European Cups by playing pretty football every week. If you ask any of the great players in that team, they will tell you that sometimes they had to dig in and play nasty.

"Sometimes they had to compete and play in a certain way – that is what we have to recognise and what our fans have to recognise.

"We won't always get our own way. Teams are now giving us respect and pushing us much harder. They are closing us down and working hard to stop us from playing. That is what we have to expect now."

Forest striker Dexter Blackstock, whose two goals helped overcome the Owls, agrees that Forest will have to grind out results in the future, as teams attempt to stifle their attacking prowess.

"When you get to January or February in the season, it is no secret that we are a good passing side," he said. "Teams who have come to the City Ground to play open football have been ripped apart.

"So teams will change their way of thinking and try to battle things out. That is what Wednesday did and, for periods of the game, they were on top.

"But credit to the lads, we ground out a result.

"It is going to be a tough game at Coventry, but every game in this division is tough and you cannot take anything for granted.

"We have to go there with the same mentality and be prepared to stand up and fight. If we can do that, we can get the ball down and play and hopefully, come away with a result."

Defender Chris Gunter, normally one of the team's more committed players when it comes to getting stuck in, says Forest will be prepared to claw their way to points in the future.

"We knew Sheffield Wednesday would have seen Derby beat us last weekend and think to themselves 'let's test them again'," he said. "And, to be fair, they did. When we have scored this season, we have sometimes gone on to get two or three more quite quickly. But credit to them, they did not let us do that.

"But we stayed strong, we carried on fighting and we put in a performance that was different to what we have produced recently, particularly at home.

"In a way, it was a very pleasing win because of that. We have shown that we can be tough when we need to be.

"People would have said after Derby that, if you put the boot in and stop Forest playing, then they will struggle.

"Hopefully we have proved that we can adapt. Although our run of form away from home was perhaps a sign that we are capable of doing that before.

"You might be able to stop us playing our best football sometimes, but we can still adapt to get the job done.

"We like to play football, players do not like to have to scrap and battle, if they can knock it about instead. But sometimes that is what you have to do and we have shown that we are capable of doing it."