A YEAR ago, a full week after Valentine’s Day, Owen Coyle made me the happiest man in East Lancashire as he cleaned out his desk.

One day later that desk was filled with a more substantial presence.

And I have felt even happier since, even as relegation gripped the club.

Under the last incumbent Rovers slowly rotted away until all that was left were some good footballers on makeshift rafts and an awful lot of driftwood.

Of the 14 players who fell to a 1-2 loss in Coyle’s last game at Hillsborough, six are still at the club, are motivated and have played a part this season.

Of the other eight only Connor Mahoney would get anywhere near the side now.

Tony Mowbray has taken a year to rebuild Rovers from a desolate mausoleum filled with dying careers and has resurrected one or two, shipped out a dozen and brought in some of the most electrifying talent we’ve seen in years.

No one can be in any doubt that 90 per cent of Mowbray’s deals have been top drawer.

The jigsaw that he has slowly built is not one that will necessitate breaking up and redoing but one that will only require dabs of glue to help it stick together.

The tactics he plays are sometimes combated but if we take Monday’s win as an example then he can see what to change and how to throw the opposition into disarray.

In many battles if it is not the opening salvo that determines the winner it is the last.

At 0-0 Mowbray always knows he has good and varied weapons in his artillery and if sometimes they misfire then so be it.

I know I seem to harp on about a section of fans, but does a team who were technically top of the division at half time deserve booing off?

That, as ever, is a matter for debate, but after a year of Mowbray we’ve had so much to cheer.

Let’s remember that when things go slightly awry.