AN early penalty from Jason Demetriou saw Southend United triumph 1-0 at Peterborough United this afternoon.

The Shrimpers full-back calmly slotted home from the spot as Chris Powell’s side made it back to back wins with their first away triumph since October.

Blues, who were unchanged from last Saturday’s win against Scunthorpe United,began brightly and opened the scoring after just seven minutes, with Demetriou on target from the penalty spot.

The spot-kick was given after Stephen McLaughlin had been brought down by Posh goalkeeper Jonathan Bond.

And Demetriou made the most of the opportunity as he stroked his penalty into the bottom left hand corner of the net with Bond diving in the opposing direction.

Moments later, a left wing cross from Ben Coker flew across the face of goal before a deflected 20 yard shot from Demetriou was smartly saved by Bond.

In reply, Jack Marriott soon sent a close range header straight at Blues goalkeeper Mark Oxley before Posh had an equaliser disallowed for offside in the 37th minute when a fine, low finish from Andrew Hughes was ruled out.

With the home-side continue to attack, Oxley then did well to deny Marriott before Posh almost drew back level in comical circumstances at the start of the second half when an attempted challenge from Simon Cox resulted in firing the ball straight at his own goalkeeper from 20 yards.

Posh soon came even closer to drawing back level when Marriott raced clean through on goal – only for his shot to be diverted wide of the right post by Oxley.

Marriott had brushed aside a sliding John White to create the chance but White was injured while attempting to make the challenge and, after a long delay, he was stretchered off with his leg in a brace.

White was replaced by Anton Ferdinand at the heart of the back four and Blues immediately close to doubling their lead when Cox fired inches wide of the right post from 20 yards.

Moments later, McLaughlin’s shot from Ben Coker’s left wing cross flew just wide of the left post before Posh hit back with Chris Forrester having a long range parried to safety by Oxley.

With play soon switching back to the other end of the pitch, McLaughlin then had a low effort gathered by Bond at the second attempt before Blues made their second change of the afternoon in the 75th minute with Freddie Ladapo replacing Marc-Antoine Fortune in attack.

Ladapo was immediately involved as he headed Coker’s left wing cross wide of the left post before Blues were forced to dig deep and withstand 10 minutes of added on time – during which Hughes had another effort ruled out for offside - to record a second successive victory.