PAUL WHEELOCK VERDICT: Bury 0 Blackburn Rovers 1/Morecambe 0 Blackburn Rovers 0

Understandably, though, the latter stills needs due care and attention. When Owen Coyle’s side moved through the gears on Saturday, in the first half against Bury and in the second against Morecambe, they should have left their lower-division opponents trailing in the dust.

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However that finishing touch was lacking and, after a victory over the Shakers which should have been emphatic, the brakes were put on their 100 per cent winning start to the summer schedule.

Not that results matter particularly. It’s what happens from August 6 onwards that really counts.

But there is no harm in starting as you mean to go on or, in the case of Danny Graham, continuing where you left off.

We saw enough in the second half of last season to suggest that Graham can be a Rolls Royce of a forward in the Championship and, two games into his permanent return to Rovers, he already has two goals to his name.

True had the dubious goals panel been present at the Globe Arena his headed seventh-minute winner may have gone down as an own goal given it took a large nick off a Bury head.

But there was no way Rovers boss Coyle, a goal-getter himself in his playing days, was going to take it off the man he labels, with some justification, ‘a proper number nine’.

“That feeling of ‘I’m going to score every game’ is a great feeling to have and he’ll probably feel he should have scored again in the second period when he rattled the post,” said Coyle.

“For me he’s a proper number nine. He’s one of those players I think can contribute to the game when he’s not scoring. He holds it up, brings the team into play, battles with the centre-backs, and gets the ball out to the wide players who can create and score chances.

“All in all I was delighted with Danny. He’s in a good place, he’s enjoying being at the club and he knows he’s a big part of it.”

Coyle was right to suggest Graham should have scored in the second 30-minute half against the Shakers after being played in by Connor Mahoney, who was the pick of the five teenagers on show, the youngest being 17-year-old centre-back Tyler Magloire, who will return to the Academy ranks a better player for it.

But so too should have John O’Sullivan, the former Bury loanee heading against the post and then blazing the rebound wildly over the bar.

There were no such clear-cut chances in the second and final hour-long match against Morecambe.

But after a half-time team-talk in which Coyle let his players know they had to increase the intensity, Rovers peppered the Shrimps goal with Barry Roche making four saves before Ryan Nyambe headed over right at the death.

“I was delighted with how hard we worked,” said Coyle. “We could have scored four or five goals in each game.

“Obviously that will come when the sharpness comes. The good thing is we are making chances.

“We played two entirely different teams, both teams featured loads of young kids, and it was great for them to play with experienced players.

“The target before the game was we get more match fitness and more match sharpness and we’ve achieved that goal.

“We’re not the finished article but at times we brought a lot of quality, some of the play was terrific, and when we went from the side and back in, all of a sudden, in the second period against Morecambe in particular, we started getting our shots in, and their keeper made three or four wonderful saves.

“Overall I’m delighted with the way we’ve went about it up to this point. We’ve got such an honest, hardworking, conscientious group, and we have quality within that group.”

More options are required, though, particularly up front, where Graham and Stokes, who like fellow new boy Jack Byrne, showed some neat touches against the Shrimps, have yet to partner each other given Coyle currently does not have another forward to call on.

That has led to Faissal El Bakhtaoui being given a chance to impress and he did enough in the 12 minutes he was on the pitch against Bury to suggest he is worth another look.

But even if El Bakhtaoui wins a deal, it is likely he will have to play back-up to Graham, the man who is very much already up and running.