Tony Mowbray says his thoughts on his team hadn’t changed during a tough run, as he savoured a return to winning ways against West Bromwich Albion.

Rovers had lost three successive games for just the second time of Mowbray’s tenure over the Christmas period, but bounced back on New Year’s Day with a 2-1 win.

Charlie Mulgrew and Bradley Dack were on target in the second half, and despite being pegged back by a Jay Rodriguez penalty, Rovers held on for a first win since December 1.

“Every three points is huge for us, I think on the back of the run of game we’ve had it’s important to pick up three points pretty quickly,” Mowbray explained.

“I’ve said to them – it doesn’t change my thoughts on the team. I think they’re a team of warriors, they’ve got amazing human qualities with the way they play.

“I think the intensity they’ve been asked to play over the last three games, four including today, has been huge when you play Leeds United, Norwich City and Sheffield United – the top three in the division back to back, it’s really tough particularly if you come out the wrong end of those games.

“This was another potential, you could feel their quality first half I felt and when they scored you could feel their quality.

“They’re a good side with good players yet out intensity managed to overcome them today. We can’t play football like they do I don’t think, with their experience and quality but we had to find a way to win and we managed to do that.”

Rovers have suffered late heartache of late, shipping late goals to throw away leads.

So there was a nervousness and anxiety around Ewood Park after Rodriguez reduced the arrears just after the hour mark.

But after being dogged in defence to see the game out, Mowbray added: “We’ve talked a lot about that this week, you can’t just let losing late goals go by every week. In fact, we were losing three goals every week.

“Yet the conscientiousness of this team is one of its huge strengths – the fact that we talk about things trying to put it right, discuss training sessions about what we need to do.

“Myself and the senior players, we come up with the best way to tackle the game and they stuck to it, got through it and got the game won.”

Rovers took the lead in the 52nd minute, doubling their advantage five minutes later through Dack’s 10th league goal of the campaign.

“Against top teams you always want that bit of a cushion because you feel they can score at any time,” Mowbray said.

“It was a huge blow them scoring so soon after going 2-0 up because there might have been a sense of déjà vu creeping it.

“But we managed get to through it.”

Dack was substituted midway through the second half, moments after giving away the penalty from which Rodriguez scored as he pushed over Harvey Barnes.

Explaining the switch, which saw Craig Conway come on, Mowbray added: “We needed four midfield players across the pitch. We were getting hurt down our left so we needed an honest, hardworking non-fussy footballer (Conway) to match their running power. It made sense to still have some pace in the team so we left Armstrong on to have that threat in behind.

“There was the thinking – and if Bradley has to come off then he will.

“His workrate has been high and I was delighted for him that he scored such an amazing goal.

“It shouldn’t matter who comes off as long as we win the football match and Bradley understands that.”