Nigel Pearson admits his Leicester side needed a sizeable slice of luck to end their long winless streak in the Premier League.
The Foxes had not won any of their previous 13 matches, dating back to their stunning 5-3 success over Manchester United in September, but saw off Hull 1-0 thanks to Riyad Mahrez's first-half strike.
Yet how they maintained a clean sheet is anyone's guess as the Tigers ramped up the pressure and laid siege to the away goal in the final 20 minutes.
Hull finished with 18 attempts, two goal line clearances with a hint of handball, efforts against the base of the post from Jake Livermore and Abel Hernandez and a couple of point-blank misses for good measure.
Asked for his reaction, the under-pressure Pearson said: "Relief. It's got to be. It was a big game. From our own perspective losing today would have meant really losing touch.
"There's no doubt that Hull would probably win more games than draw or lose if they put teams under that sort of pressure, but we know that feeling ourselves. You need a bit of luck from time to time and we've certainly not had that in many games in this long run of ours.
"We have had really good performances that have yielded no points but here we had to show different qualities. The ones we showed today are the ones we will need from here on in -- that desire to keep the ball out of the net, that commitment.''
"There is an art of defending you know. Everybody wants to see silky skills and nice football and I'm no different, I like to see my team playing well.
"But let's not underplay the art of defending. I think plenty of players out there, on both sides, were doing that.''