Apparently it was a players' meeting after the thrashing in a pre-season defeat at Orient that turned around Newcastle's fortunes following relegation.
Danny Simpson: “A few things got said, but the manager and the staff don’t need to tell us where we went wrong – we knew ourselves.
“We looked at each other in the dressing room and we knew we had got it wrong.
“We’ve been here before though, against Scunthorpe, and we had a chat back then in the dressing rooms at Glanford Park.
“After that we said we’d go on an unbeaten run until Christmas and that’s what happened. we did even better, going all the way to February.
“Our mentality is now the same and we must do the same until the end of May.
“If we go on an unbeaten run of 15 games again we will probably get promoted.
“So we start again. We’ve done well up to now and, although Derby was disappointing, we can turn it round with another unbeaten run.”
The trip to Pride Park was the ultimate example of the dog-eat-dog nature of the Championship.
“To go from what we had last Friday against Cardiff to what we had at Derby is massively disappointing.
“But credit to them – they battled well and took their chances when they got into the final third.
“It was one of those away games when you see the crowd and you realise that it is a big game for them.
“But they did what they did very well.
“I felt my hamstring in the first half but I managed to get through it.
“I will see how it is in the next few days, but I think I am all right.”