Billy Barr feels his players need to consistently get in to positions to score goals after falling to defeat at Everton.

Rovers were the better side in the second half at Goodison Park and looked the more likely to go on to win the game after Joe Rankin-Costello equalised just three minutes after the break.

Lewis Gibson had opened the scoring for the hosts early on, before a counter-attack 13 minutes from time decided the game as Ellis Simms fired home after an excellent Anthony Gordon pass.

Barr saw plenty of improvement from his side after the break, adding: “If any team was going to win it then I thought it was going to be us, without being clinical around the box. We got in to some really good positions.

“Then we got caught out by something we knew was coming, the ball gets played in behind and the lad that finishes it, he scored 40 the other season for the Under-18s, so he knows how to score goals. He only needs that sniff.

“We huffed and we puffed late on. Joe Rankin-Costello put a great ball in late and I thought ‘where are we?’. That’s the difference, they’d have been on the end of that, we’re not.

“We have to get in positions where you can score goals more consistently and reap the rewards from that.”

Jack Vale was back in the side to lead the line, after injury, with Dominic Samuel, who had scored three goals in his last two games, not involved.

Asked whether the goalscoring knack was instinct, or could be coached, Barr admitted ‘it’s a bit of both’, acknowledging the qualities the role that coach Mike Sheron displayed in his playing days as a striker.

“We have got Mike Sheron on the bench, he would definitely have been in that position in his era,” Barr said.

“It’s guidance, we’ll speak with them.

“Jack Vale is coming back from injury, Chappy (Harry Chapman) was coming to link the play, but that’s where goals are scored and when we have someone who can put the ball in with quality, we don’t need people showing to feet.

“I thought we let them off too much in the game in instances like that.”

Rankin-Costello was Rovers’ liveliest threat in what was an open game at Goodison Park.

Joe Hilton made three excellent saves in the first half as Rovers went in one goal down having been undone by a set play.

But Vale and Chapman both went close after the equaliser, though Everton were denied by the post as Anthony Evans’ shot hit the woodwork.

“I thought we started okay and then Everton finished the half better than us,” Barr said, after a third defeat in five matches.

“I was disappointed with their goal, unmarked in the box from a free kick.

“Second half I thought they listened to what we asked, being braver on the ball, which was part of the game-plan but we forgot it for large chunks of the first half, and I felt we were the better team in the second half.”