Mowbray lifts Rovers’ spirits
BLUE-EYED BOY’S BLACKBURN VIEW
IN an era during which positives have been hard to find, it’s nice to sit down and reflect after a week when anything that could have gone wrong for Rovers for once by and large didn’t.
As reported last week bang on an Observer deadline literally a quarter of an hour before his replacement was announced, the sacking of the utterly hapless and wretched Owen Coyle couldn’t fail to raise spirits and hopes and while his successor didn’t immediately spring to mind in anyone’s list of five preferred candidates, Tony Mowbray carries sufficient respect and affection in the game and among fans of previous employers not to have been regarded as any kind of further Venkys/Senior howler.
But for the curvature of the Burton goalposts and the lack of dip on a Bradley Johnson header we could have been pondering a start for Mowbray of one point from six but like all successful managers he has needed and richly deserved a bit of fortune to garnish the immediate lift he’s given everyone even if the actual performances haven’t been as radically or spectacularly improved as he’s being given credit for.
A dopey second-half showing at The Pirelli could have undone all the promise enjoyed by a newly-optimistic and supportive away following.
The scenes of rancour and bile at Barnsley and Rotherham which exploded when we went a goal down reflected no credit on and offered no help to anyone, save to broadcast to a watching world, whose reaction ranged from bemused to highly amused, what a mess we were in.
A pal who’s been to virtually every away game for a few seasons had vowed to ban himself from further road trips if Coyle stayed but I was delighted to see him pictured among a few other stalwarts when the first fan pic was posted on Twitter on Friday.
On Tuesday, as the Derby match loomed, I had a pretty poor day health-wise and wasn’t that bothered about turning out myself.
When our elder daughter came home at half past six from a tough day of travel grafting for the NHS in a Merseyside Hospital, she declared herself totally knackered and I expected her to emerge from her room a few minutes later to ask me if she minded if she gave it a miss. I was half hoping she would. But, no, out she came in the “32 Conway” shirt with ten minutes to throw a bit of tea down before setting off. If a first-time season-ticket holder can summon that kind of enthusiasm 32 games into a largely awful campaign I felt it my duty to drag myself off the couch and accompany her and younger sister to Ewood.
I was delighted I did too. A blast of fresh air can never be a bad thing and there was a metaphorical new spring to Rovers’ step Triangle down the right into which attacks either vanished or faded away to a speculative long-range effort from Hughes, whose boots appear to be imbued with the same kind of propensity to unerringly miss the target as Jadon Steele’s.
While lot of focus rightly came on the way Rovers bravely but riskily defended after Conway’s penalty goal – fairly frantically with a wing and a prayer for the final 20 minutes as possession was repeatedly surrendered – you also have to credit the way they denied the perennially prolific Championship predator that is Nugent a single sniff until way beyond the hour mark and made Jonny Russell and Bradley Johnson look very ordinary players indeed (which in all fairness is probably exactly what they are).
Mulgrew, a signing mocked by many (including me) is an absolute class act wherever he plays and I hope some of those who were ready to write Darragh Lenihan off after a few perfectly understandable belowpar “dip” performances are now thoroughly ashamed of the way they hastily disparaged a developing talent.
While the midfield is of necessity artlessly functional rather than a thing of beauty, nobody’s appetite for graft could be questioned and Feeney’s industry covering every blade of our right-hand side in support of the improving Nyambe was particularly heartening. He richly deserved a good hand when replaced by the far more popular Mahoney, even if the cross which the alert Gallagher, a handful all night, seized upon for the spot-kick tackle was probably his worst of the night.
Although I’d have shaken hands on a point before the game with two more Ewood matches to come within the week, the three points has given everyone a tangible lift and four or six more before we finish this Ewood sequence would represent a major series of feats for Mowbray in an impressive and reassuring beginning to his tenure.
Well done to the club for coming up with a sixmatch cheap tickets package for the remainder of the Ewood matches which will decide our fate.
Unless you’re of the more extreme, entrenched “not a penny more to Venkys” mentality there seems little point not “getting behind the lads” for at least a short and crucial period despite the fact that, for a tiny minority, wishing to do so equates to some kind of complicity in the club’s decline.