BLACKBURN Rovers boss Gary Bowyer was left to bemoan his side’s failure to take their chances after they were beaten 2-1 in their Boxing Day derby at revived neighbours Bolton Wanderers yesterday.

Rovers, roared on by 4,500 travelling fans, took a deserved into the break after the recalled Josh King scored his first goal of the season.

But their failure to ram home their superiority in the first half came back to haunt them after the restart.

Wanderers, aided by some shicking defending, equalised in the 59th minute with a debut goal from half-time substitute Emile Heskey.

And three minutes later Darren Pratley turned the match on its head with what proved to be the winner.

Bowyer said: “We were the better team, their goalie has been magnificent and has probably won them the game.

“We’ve thrown absolutely everything at them. In the first half time we took them by surprise and the game should have been dead and buried.

“We’ve had a magnificent support today and the two major disappointments for us are that we weren’t 3-0 or 4-0 up at half-time and then the crazy five minutes that we had.

“After going 2-1 down we responded, we hit the bar, had a goalmouth scramble and had what seemed to be a perfectly good goal disallowed.

“It is a tough one to take for such a young group but they’ve got to bounce back very quickly.

“We should have been more than one goal up and the major disappointment is that we haven’t been ruthless enough.

“Also maybe there was a little bit of inexperience in a derby environment for five minutes when we conceded two.”

Rovers had what seemed to be a perfectly good goal from Jordan Rhodes disallowed after Pratley’s strike.

And Bowyer said: “The referee said the defender’s feet was taken away from him.

“We didn’t see that and we’ve have had a look on the video and it’s not that.

“But we can’t just be talking about that one, there’s loads of other chances.”

Rovers, who remain eighth and four points off the play-offs, welcome fourth-placed Middlesbrough to Ewood Park tomorrow.

Bowyer will without on-loan goalkeeper Jason Steele, who is ineligible to face parent club Boro, and midfielder Corry Evans, who has been hit with a two-game ban after being shown his 10th yellow card of the season yesterday.

But the fit-again King has a good chance of featuring again after his performance on his first start since October 4 impressed Bowyer.

“Kingy’s pace frightened them,” said Bowyer, who will be boosted by the return tomorrow of on-loan Bolton defender Alex Baptiste, who was ineligible to play yesterday.

“I thought he was terrific and took his goal ever so well. Hopefully he can build on it.”

Heskey’s goal yesterday was the 13th of his career against the Ewood Park outfit.

The former England international, who has signed a short-deal with Wanderers after returning from a stint playing in Australia, did spend some time training with Rovers in the summer.

Bowyer said: “He was doing a lot of media work so it was difficult to do anything.”