Preston North End made it four games unbeaten on Saturday afternoon, as they played out a 1-1 draw with Swansea City at Deepdale.

It was a former Swansea player who would give Preston the lead, with Scott Sinclair curling an effort into the bottom corner from the edge of the area to give North End the lead 27 minutes in, his first goal for the club since joining from Celtic in the January transfer window.

Swansea however would not be behind for long, with Rhian Brewster tapping in Andre Ayew's ball across the face of goal from close range barely three minutes later, which would ultimately be enough to ensure both sides shared the spoils at the end of the 90 minutes.

That result was enough to keep Preston seventh in the Championship table, although they are now three points behind sixth-placed Bristol City in the race for a play-off spot, leaving manager Alex Neil with plenty to think about going forward.

Here, we take a look at three things we learnt about Preston from that draw on Saturday.

An important moment for Scott Sinclair

Up against the club for whom he played such a big part in promotion to the Premier League back in the 2010/11 season, Scott Sinclair came up with what will surely go down as a significant moment in his Preston career.

Picking up the ball on the right touchline midway inside the Swansea half 27 minutes, Sicliar drove towards the edge of the visitor's penalty area, before curling a brilliant effort into the bottom far corner of Freddie Woodman's goal.

Not only will the fact that he has got off the mark so early into his time at Preston be a big weight off the shoulders of Sinclair - given the expectation that has been on him since his arrival - but the quality of the build-up and finish should provide him with a huge amount of confidence, and you only need to look at how he celebrated against a former club to see just how much that goal meant to him.

Ben Pearson steps up again

There have been plenty of eye-catching individual performances for Preston across the course of this season, and Ben Pearson's on Saturday, was certainly one of them.

Up against a dangerous looking Swansea attack, Pearson certainly did his bit from holding midfield to help keep the opposition at bay, working tirelessly maintain control of possession and shut down attacks for his team, at times coming out of his natural position in order to do so.

It was another performance that showed just why Pearson is so popular, and indeed important, around the club, and you feel he will have plenty big performances such as this to put in as North End go in search of a play-off spot in the next few months, meaning this was certainly an encouraging sign for Alex Neil and co.

They should be embroiled in the battle for a play-off spot for the rest of the season

With these two sides coming into the game separated by just one place and one point in the Championship table, it is perhaps no surprise that this was such a tightly-contested encounter.

Indeed, for large portions of the game, it seemed as though Preston and Swansea simply cancelled each other out, with both sides impressive in defence especially, and the hosts only leading the game for around four minutes across the course of the entire match.

Given Preston still have to play a number of teams in the race for promotion, you imagine they could still have plenty more games such as this to come, with none of those sides wanting to give much away to a rival.

As a result, it could be hard for Preston to steal a march in the race for a top-six spot, although their performance against another side in that race here, suggests they shouldn't be losing too much ground in this particular battle either.