WOLVES boss Colin Lee heaped praise on his players after they defied Rovers with a brave 10-man rearguard action at Ewood yesterday.

But the Molyneux chief then revealed he had got the idea for the tactical switch after watching Rovers play Sheffield United with 10-men two weeks ago.

"When Jason McAteer was sent off at Bramall Lane I thought to myself, at that stage, I would have gone 4-4-1 to try and save a point," said Hill.

"So once Kevin Muscat got sent off, it was an automatic decision to go to a 4-4-1.

"It was strange that that happened here on the back of me watching them go a man down.

"But, in the end, the decision was proved to be right.

"The lads worked very hard and defended patiently.

"After going 1-0 up I was quite disappointed we conceded a goal so quickly.

"But then after going down to 10 men and the penalty miss, it took a lot of committed performances in the end to get us a draw."

Rovers skipper Lee Carsley was disappointed, however, that his side didn't wrap up the points after carving out a host of chances.

"We should have finished things off because we must have created about 10 chances," said Carsley.

"But we've taken seven points out of nine over Christmas and that keeps us nicely ticking along.

"We've started the New Year and haven't lost, so that's the main thing."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.