SEVEN away games played, two away goals conceded. If you are looking for a reason why Newcastle United have forced their way to the top of the Championship table, their defensive resilience away from St James’ Park is surely a key factor.

Dwight Gayle has rightly been hogging the headlines at the opposite end of the field, with last night’s double making it seven goals in the striker’s last four games and taking his tally in a black-and-white shirt to 11 goals in 11 Championship games since he completed a £10m move from Crystal Palace.

That is remarkable ratio befitting of Newcastle’s number nine shirt, and last night’s strikes, a poacher’s effort after a corner was not cleared and a slick finish after powering clear of the opposition defence, were sufficient to see off a resilient Barnsley side that frustrated the Magpies for long spells.

But Newcastle’s success in the early months of the season has been built on a rock-solid defence, particularly away from home, and in Jamaal Lascelles and Ciaran Clark, Rafael Benitez has fashioned a partnership that blends the ideal attributes for life in the Championship.

Both defenders are comfortable in possession, but they also relish a physical confrontation, and for the fifth time in seven away games, their efforts at Oakwell meant the Magpies were able to celebrate a clean sheet.

When Newcastle were last in the Championship, Fabricio Coloccini emerged as a defensive leader and linchpin. Seven years on, and Lascelles is proving capable of filling the same role.

The similarities do not end there, as the 2009-10 season also featured a succession of scrappy victories on the road, especially in the first half of the campaign. It was only in the final few months that Newcastle really cut loose, and it is matches such as last night’s that tend to define a promotion campaign.

Win enough of them, and you will have a great chance of finishing in the top two, and for all that games such as the 4-3 win over Norwich and 6-0 thrashing of QPR will live long in the memory, it is the 2-0 wins over Barnsley, not to mention similarly narrow victories at Rotherham, Derby and Bristol City, that could well prove crucial in the final reckoning.

For the second away game in a row, Newcastle struggled to assert their dominance in South Yorkshire. For the second away game in a row, they found a way to pull through.

Barnsley might have conceded four goals at home to Fulham three days earlier, but Paul Heckingbottom’s side were well-organised, energetic and quick to close down when they did not have possession, and it took Newcastle more than a quarter of the game to fashion their first opportunity.

Matt Ritchie broke down the right-hand side, but his cross was directed marginally behind Gayle, and the striker was unable to find the target with an improvised back-heel flick.

Newcastle’s other first-half opportunities were equally scrappy, with Ritchie seeing a fierce strike blocked in the area after a neat free-kick routine teed him up and Gayle curling another set-piece straight at Adam Davies in the Barnsley goal.

Mo Diame headed Ritchie’s corner wide at the front post in first-half stoppage time, but whereas the Magpies’ attacking had been slick and clinical in their weekend win over Brentford, this was a much less assured performance for an hour or so.

Barnsley’s players deserve some credit for that, but the visitors initially lapsed back into their unwelcome habit of aiming too many aimless long balls towards either Diame or Gayle. Diame, who is yet to fully convince since moving from Hull City in the summer, battled away gamely, but Gayle is hardly the most physical of strikers and he regularly found himself in an unequal battle with the imposing Andy Yiadom.

If Newcastle want physicality, Aleksandar Mitrovoic is surely their man. With Gayle in the team, it is imperative the Magpies’ midfielders get their foot on the ball and attempt to thread passes that allow the striker to gallop beyond the opposition back four.

That didn’t happen until Gayle claimed his second goal, and with Barnsley’s attacking moves proving equally ineffective, the match settled into a pattern of fiercely-competitive midfield play.

The hosts threatened shortly after the half-hour mark as full-back James Bree flashed a long-range effort narrowly wide after Conor Hourihane’s free-kick was blocked in the area, and forced Karl Darlow into his first save four minutes before the interval as Sam Winnall curled in a fairly weak set-piece.

On the whole, though, Lascelles and Clark were relatively untroubled, with their aerial superiority enabling them to shackle Winnall and Marley Watkins with precious little fuss.

With quality build-up play at a premium at both ends, it always felt as though a scrappy strike would break the deadlock, and sure enough, when Newcastle’s opener arrived four minutes into the second half, it was hardly a thing of quality. Not, however, that that mattered to the massed ranks of almost 6,000 away fans who celebrated raucously as the goal was scored in front of them.

Ritchie swung over a corner from the right, and Clark found himself appealing vociferously for a penalty as he tumbled over in the area. Referee Paul Tierney remained unmoved, but the ball squirmed across the face of the six-yard box and Gayle reacted quickest to stab home at the back post.

Barnsley almost produced an immediate response, with Sam Morsy flashing a 25-yard strike narrowly over the crossbar, but with an advantage to defend, Newcastle’s players successfully began to retain possession and add some composure to their display.

Crucially, Lascelles and Clark continued to dominate at the back, and with Isaac Hayden becoming more of an influence at the heart of midfield, Barnsley’s attackers were never able to build up a head of steam.

Instead, it was Newcastle who continued to fashion the better chances, with Diame turning neatly in the area midway through the second half before floating a shot wide.

A second goal always looked likely, and Gayle duly provided it in the 68th minute with the kind of classy finish that has become his trademark in the first two-and-a-half months of the season.

For the first time all night, Ritchie’s through ball released the striker behind the Barnsley defence, and Gayle beat onrushing Tykes goalkeeper Adam Davies to prod home a neat first-time strike. Again, the celebrations in front of the packed North Stand were rapturous.