Sheffield Wednesday’s draw with Blackpool came in a flurry - though the story was sat in the director’s box. Alex Miller was there.

From time to time, Dave Challinor would reach into the pocket of what looked to be a chunky Canada Goose coat and reached for a notepad. Other clothing brands are available - and in describing the garment may well be more accurate.

The next Sheffield Wednesday boss, announced hours earlier to be in the final stages of his anointment to the Hillsborough hotseat, had spent time posing for photos and shaking hands with Wednesdayites sat close to the directors box. Louie Barry, a star of their shared time at Stockport County, embraced both him and assistant Clint Hill on his way to the ever-expanding row of seats reserved for unavailable players. Others shook hands in introduction with a little less familiarity.

At the heart of the occasion and at the mercy of the notepad was a game of football, somehow a narrative afterthought given confirmation of a new steering hand on the good ship Wednesday. In the midst of the twists and turns of the early stages of Arise’s S6 rebirth, there will be football.

Set-up in an injury-influenced three-at-the-back system that pulled Callum Slattery and Davis Keillor-Dunn together around frontman Mason Burstow, offered food for thought. Challinor has liked a defensive three in the past.

In an enjoyable for 40 minutes perhaps one of the more seminal takings was that Slattery and Keillor-Dunn, actually, can play in the same line-up to provide moments of attacking joie de vivre that had gone to merde in recent outings. Both entered the Wednesday good books for energetic and fluid efforts throughout. So too the Blackpool defence, who passed to Keillor-Dunn and provided him safe passage to shooting distance before watching him strike clinically past Bailey Peacock-Farrell.

Less popular was referee Simon Mather, whose decision to send off Sil Swinkels halted the Wednesday flow of proceedings and proved to be the most influential moment of a match the Owls would have gone on to win. The reaction of Matt Hamshaw in the moment was that he was concerned for what was to come of the challenge, though the upended Tom Bloxham was moving away from goal. You’ve seen them given and not, though the success of any appeal would seem ambitious.

What followed was a flurry of tackles and scrap and patterns from both sides, Blackpool’s equaliser coming in a cacophony of error and in the immediate moment Wednesday had altered things to prepare for victory. A bizarre back-and-forth between Barry Bannan, at moments at his best, and Tangerines boss Ian Evatt provided a tingle more spice. Evatt is a character seemingly never far from niggle and if the gestures of the newly slimmed-down manager towards Bannan’s stomach were interpreted correctly, you worry for the rest of us.

All a side note. Except the bits that weren’t. Confirmation of injury whispers to key men and an impending Swinkels suspension gather amid the hope of returns for others. Challinor inherits a squad more talented than most they’ll come up against but lacking balance and seemingly set to always carry fallen soldiers.

He’ll have seen things he liked and that he didn’t, he’ll have seen a spit and sawdust attitude that some Wednesday players have lacked in recent weeks. Perhaps most importantly, he’ll have seen a Hillsborough stadium suddenly alive in moments, pepped from their Sunday slumber by pleasing patterns and, yes, a bit of needle. That the Owls shot from their own half on three occasions showed a confidence and daring nature that not long ago felt dissipated.

The bigger picture stretches far beyond Blackpool and in so many ways, even further beyond this season. The new order have chosen their man to take supporters on an on-the-pitch journey that is hoped to mirror the strides taken off it. It would be interesting to peel through the pages of that Challinor notepad. Wednesday awaits a new dawn in this whirlwind year of new dawns.