NOW is the time for this Rovers side to really show us what they are made of.

We haven’t performed well for a few weeks now and have ridden our luck to keep the unbeaten run going.

Sadly it came crashing down around us on Saturday when a below-par performance was given the result it deserved.

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And it was our turn to be on the wrong side of some bad luck when Claude Dielna’s long-range effort deflected into the net with the last kick of the game.

As Paul Wheelock said in his match report, ‘what goes around comes around’, and perhaps we have become a little complacent recently as a result of all the luck we have been getting.

Hopefully the positive we can take out of defeat is that this provides the wake-up call the team so desperately needed.

We are still in the play-off mix and we are still not that far off the top of the league, but to stay there we need to start performing much better.

There were too many passengers at Ewood on Saturday. Too many off days. And not for the first time despite the nine-game unbeaten run.

But time and again this season, reinvigorated by Gary Bowyer, this side has shown its grit, determination and mettle and bounced back.

Whether that is in games when we have gone behind or after a bad result, the team spirit possessed by this group has shone through. So what better time than now, with four games in very quick succession, to get that team bond back and to get another run back on the go.

Brentford away is, shockingly, quite a daunting fixture with the newly promoted side sitting happily in the play-offs having enjoyed a surprisingly good start to the season.

My only memory of playing the West London side is, I think, a 1-0 win at Ewood in about 1997 in the Coca Cola Cup when I was just a kid and didn’t have a clue what Brentford was.

On Saturday, Rovers will be roared on by a sell-out crowd of about 1,500 with the game clearly appealing to the travelling Rovers contingent looking forward to adding a new ground to their checklist. Either that or the fact there is a pub on every corner and easy train access to the ground made this a must-go match in the season calendar.

  • I just wanted to point out, because I got a fair amount of stick when I criticised them earlier in the season, that the online ‘do you have faith in Gary Bowyer as manager’ poll has now swung back with more than half of respondents saying ‘yes’.

Funny what a few matches can do to football fans’ perspective.