Tony Mowbray feels his players have reason to be happy with their start to the season and praised their work ethic in the first 12 games.

Rovers have adjusted well to life back in the Championship, collecting 18 points and sitting 10th in the table.

The boss has regularly praised the spirit and workrate of his squad, both in games and in their off field endeavours, and believes that can carry them a long way this season.

Mowbray leaves the players to themselves in the sanctuary of the dressing room and has previously revealed how his trusted senior players are left to maintain the good standards of practice.

And he said of his squad: “The group are very strong mentally, we have some experienced footballers in there who are good human beings with good hearts.

“I always say to them this is their dressing room, their team, I rarely go in their dressing room.

“I work from my office, from the grass, we work in the TV analysis room a lot but the dressing room is their domain.

“What they say, how they drive each other, how they talk about the preparation, the tactics, the mentally, I’m sure it’s very positive at the moment.

“I’m not driving any positions in the league at the team, I’m driving the next game and if we do this and this then we a have a good chance of making this happen. Then they pick it up and run with it.

“Hopefully they are in positive mode, they will feel we should have more points than we have accrued and that will give them a confidence that we have to keep going.”

Having stepped up a division, Mowbray knows there will be spells when that spirit will be tested.

Rovers have so far lost just two of their league fixtures, but face a tough run of games when they resume league action against Leeds United on October 20.

One of those defeats came against Bristol City, a game Mowbray felt his side should have been two or three goals ahead before slipping to a 4-1 defeat.

The other came against a Sheffield United side in the midst of an excellent run of form and sitting top of the league.

But pleased with how things are shaping up, Mowbray added: “There will be days, like Bristol City away, when we should have been two or three up, the game slips through our fingers and we go on to lose 4-1. Teams can do that to you.

“Derby away we were hanging on, we could feel their quality and their ability to hurt us, to pick passes and last ditch tackles and blocks kept the score at 0-0.

“Against Forest we came away disappointed that we hadn’t won, but came away from Derby feeling we did all right to win a point.

“There will be other games along the way, some that will run away from us and others that we dig in and win it 1-0, hopefully from a dodgy penalty that we deserve, but let’s keep going.

“As long as we keep the workrate and work ethic we’ve been showing then we’ll be okay. Wherever that takes us, it takes us.”