Alex Neil felt it was important his side left Ewood Park without defeat as he welcomed an end to their three game losing run.

Josh Harrop’s thunderbolt cancelled out Adam Armstrong’s opener in a scrappy game between two sides who are both now without a win in six matches.

But after three successive defeats, Neil felt it was important to be hard to beat, going with two defensive midfielders and Tom Clarke at right back, in a bid to contain Rovers who have now lost just twice at home this season.

Asked if he felt it was a good point for his side, Neil said: “Certainly, after the first half, I thought it was.

“If you look at our start, I thought the first couple of phases we looked quite bright.

“And then we just make a mistake, we got an opportunity to repair it, we don’t, and then it falls to Armstrong and he sticks it in the bottom corner.

“At that stage, you’re always concerned because you don’t want to have that negative momentum, but to be fair to the lads, they rallied not long after that. Josh Harrop, a fantastic strike from the edge of the box. It was a stunning strike.

“I thought from that point onwards, probably about the first 20 minutes we did okay, but after that they settled, we didn’t really get our press right in terms of trying to hunt the ball and they played through us and they dominated most of the first half.

“We found it difficult, albeit they didn’t create a lot of clear-cut chances off the back of that.

“Second half, we had a chat, I was more aggressive in terms of locking onto them and I thought that helped us enormously.

“Second half, we were better, but again I thought it was quite a scrappy game. It was difficult and you could see what it meant to the two teams as well.

“Equally, they’ve had a couple of games where they’ve lost as well, so I thought it was important we got something from the game.”

Harrop scored with one of two North End shots on target, but Neil felt neither side could lay claim to being the dominant force.

“They had a couple of half chances, we had a couple of half chances. I’m not sure any team did enough to win the game,” he told his club’s website.

“We just need to cut out silly errors, that’s what’s costing us at the moment.

“Earlier in the season, we weren’t making those. We were playing freely, playing confidently.

“I think at the moment, you can see we had to tighten it up a little bit, make sure we were harder to beat, because there’s one thing playing freely but if you’re losing, you need to change it.

“We did change it a bit, albeit we went a little bit loose at the top in terms of the lads that are capable of creating something for us. We take a point and move onto the next one.”