His thoughts in Tuesday night may have centered on the impact being made by Jordan Rhodes against Aldershot, but it was not long before Andy Scott was thinking about another of his loan signings.
Alan Bennett has been the glue binding the Bees defence this season and while other members of the back four have come and gone, he has been there through it all.
He has underpinned a miserly defence, missing only two games and working well in tandem with James Wilson earlier in the season and now Mark Phillips.
A half-season loan was extended by a month at the start of the transfer window but both Scott and Bennett were keen for the stay to be until the end of the season and on Wednesday, they got their wish.
Reading were holding out in case they receive an offer from another club because they are keen on a transfer fee or at least a club willing to take him off their wage bill because they still pay a slice of his salary.
Meanwhile, Scott has been full of praise for the latest addition to his squad.
"I've been watching him since he was 16 years old and that's probably the first one like that I've seen him miss," Scott said of Rhodes' spurned chance early on when he was played in by Adam Newton but pulled his shot wide of both keeper and far post.
"But for a young lad to come in to a new team and play like that was very good. The movement and link-up play [with Charlie MacDonald] was outstanding, it really was.
"He kept plugging away and his imagination around the box is what we've been looking for.
"We worked on that a bit in training because I wanted to show the rest of the lads what a good player he was and show charlie what he can do so the players have faith in him."
