DANNY Graham says Rovers won’t be getting too far ahead of themselves insisting a lot of hard work lies ahead despite an impressive victory over Shrewsbury.

Graham scored the second as Tony Mowbray’s side beat their promotion rivals 3-1 to move to within two points of the League One automatic promotion spots.

It is five goals in his last six Ewood matches for the striker who started for the fifth consecutive game as Rovers stretched their unbeaten run to 15 league games.

And the 32-year-old says things are looking up after the disappointment of relegation last term, but says no-one at the club is taking their eye off the ball.

He said: “We knew last season wasn’t good enough as a collective.

“We wanted to get off to a good start to this season but we couldn’t do that. Since the third game at Bradford we have only been beaten twice so it’s a confidence going into every game and we go in to it believing we can win every one.

“We’re fully focussed on putting it (last season) right.

“We don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves. We’re still two points behind Shrewsbury and five behind Wigan so we’ll look to take each game as it comes.

“There’s 20 games left but we wanted to go out and make a big statement and I feel we’ve done that .

“People will be looking out for that result and they’ll see us coming. We want to build on this and it’s on to Fleetwood now.”

Charlie Mulgrew scored his 10th and 11th goals of the season, the first from a free-kick and the second from the penalty spot in a thoroughly deserved Rovers victory on Saturday.

Jon Nolan had levelled with a spot kick in what was a controversial decision 10 minutes before the break, and Graham says the half-time whistle helped Rovers.

He added: “The penalty decision is a bad one from what David (Raya) said.

“Half time came, we dusted ourselves down and went out in the second half positive and got the result I think we deserved.

“I’m miles away from the penalty decision but we dealt with that very well I felt. There was a lot of decisions that didn’t go our way but we got the win that our play deserved in the end.

“Half time came at a good time. We got in there, spoke about it and knew we’d get chances. If we took them we’d win the game and that was what happened.”

And Graham felt a fast start was key to Rovers’ chances as they executed their game-plan perfectly against the Shrews.

“It’s massive. If we lose the game we go eight points behind them,” he added.

“We didn’t really want to draw the game either. We wanted to get at them, get on the front foot and it’s a good day’s work for us.

“We got them penned in knew they were going to have little spells and we dealt with them well.

“The fans were superb. It’s easy for them to get agitated with a few of those decisions but they really stuck behind us. It’s probably one of the best atmospheres at Ewood since I’ve been here and we’re going to need that for the remainder of the season.

“The players who have come in have held their own and given a good account of themselves, which is really pleasing. To have that shows the strength in depth we have and we have players coming back from injuries which will only bode well for the rest of the season.”