DANNY Graham admitted he had a point to prove after coming off the bench to score Rovers’ winner at Derby on Saturday.

The striker, who penned a permanent deal in the summer, has yet to hit the heights of last season’s loan spell.

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But his 73rd-minute goal, that capped a frantic four minutes which saw his team respond to going a goal down to take the lead, will go some way to getting him back on track.

And Graham hopes it will also do enough to convince manager Owen Coyle that he deserves a place in the starting line-up against Sheffield Wednesday tomorrow night after sitting out the win against Rotherham through injury and starting on the bench at the iPro Stadium.

Graham’s strike, minutes after Marvin Emnes had equalised, came at the end of a brilliant team move from Rovers.

He said afterwards: “We reckon there was 20-odd passes before it goes in, but it doesn’t matter how it goes in, as long as we win the game, that’s the most important thing.

“I’ve been waiting for one of them. Obviously I haven’t scored since the Cardiff game and the boys who have come have done ever so well and rightly kept their places.

“So it was up to me to come on and prove a point and hopefully I’ve done that.”

Graham has seen Emnes and Sam Gallagher start the last two games up front, but he feels the fight for places will only benefit himself and the team.

He added: “Everyone needs competition. It’s a long, hard season - 46 games - and we need everyone doing well.

“The boys last week were superb and rightly kept their places.

“We’ve got competition throughout the squad now.

“You’ve seen today that Elliott Bennett and Jack Byrne missed out, so that shows the size of the squad we’ve got now and hopefully we can kick on.”

Six points out of six moved Rovers up to 20th and out of the relegation zone, and Graham admitted there was a great atmosphere in the squad after a tough start to the campaign.

“It feels great - back to back wins is massive,” he said.

“It’s been a poor start to the season, we know that, but to come here and get three points after going a goal behind gives us massive confidence going into Tuesday’s game.

“We don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves because there’s difficult games in this league, but these two results have filled everybody with confidence.

“Everyone is bouncing around the changing room now.

“We wanted to try to get a run together and two good performances, especially today after going behind here, showed the character we have to come back and win the game.

“Everyone is buzzing and we are all looking forward to the next match.

“I wish people could go in the dressing room and see what it means to everyone.

“We don’t like getting beat. We know we’ve let ourselves down and the fans down over the first five or six weeks of the season and hopefully we can start repaying them now.”

The former Sunderland and Swansea forward is clearly chomping at the bit to help fire Rovers even further up the table, and admitted he played through the pain before accepting his ankle knock needed a rest.

He said: “I did it on the Friday before QPR and had an injection, then played Leeds with another injection and made it worse possibly.

“I’m 31 now. I should have maybe missed one of those games, but I’m eager to play and I’ll learn from that and move on.”

Graham also admitted that Emnes has made a big difference to the side since sealing a loan move on transfer deadline day.

He added: “For the size of him he holds the ball up ever so well, and he’s got that little bit that maybe we’ve been missing in that he can play in the hole and drive the players on.

“He’s obviously scored three in three, so he’s on fire and hopefully that can continue.”