WELL here it is already. A new Premiership season upon us and despite the absence of a World Cup or European Championship to help us addicts through the summer the wait doesn't seem to have been as long as usual.

Rovers don't have a great first day record so it was fortuitous that the fixture computer matched us with Middlesbrough, who have an even worse opening fixture phobia and who must now regard Rovers as their bogey side, having lost seven on the trot against us.

It's so demoralising to suffer a bad defeat in the first game as we know from last season's debacle at Portsmouth.

For an hour at the Riverside, it looked as if we may suffer the same sort of non-performance and things were looking really bleak when Benni was carried off with what looked at the time like a serious injury.

Out of adversity often emerges opportunity and so it proved with "Rocky" scoring the sort of centre forward's goal that we haven't seen regularly since a certain Match of the Day commentator graced the hallowed turf of Ewood.

Matt Derbyshire's winner was even better reminding me of another Matty in his prime (Jansen).

Derbyshire is what the pundits would call an "impact" player and he's already scored some vital goals within a short time of being introduced into the fray.

Older readers will remember David Fairclough of Liverpool who earned himself the nickname of "supersub" for his consistent goalscoring from the bench.

I doubt if Matt Derbyshire will want to take over that mantle as he will want to be playing from the start.

Talking of "pundits", most of the national papers and TV experts seem to agree that Rovers will probably finish anywhere between seventh and 11th this season.

Make no mistake, while we can certainly hope for better, such a position would be another marvellous achievement for a club such as ours.