Tony Mowbray believes Adam Armstrong is getting better with every passing day after the attacker’s stunning goal helped Rovers end their wait for a win.

Armstrong made it 15 for the season, eight having from outside the box, but none further out than his 40-yard effort at the Cardiff City Stadium.

Rovers had twice trailed to the play-off chasing Bluebirds after Danny Graham’s goal had cancelled out Will Vaulks’ fine 15th minute goal, with Robert Glatzel restoring the hosts’ lead before the break.

But Rovers were by far the stronger in the second half, levelling just seconds after the re-start through Dominic Samuel, who should have had a penalty moments before.

But the stand-out moment came 20 minutes from time via the right boot of Armstrong, lobbing Smithies with a first-time finish from just inside the Cardiff half as Rovers secured a first victory since June 20.

“We were saying that he’s probably got his own goal of the season competition, even thinking back to Saturday, his goal was an incredible strike,” Mowbray said.

“Adam Armstrong has been doing it for as long as he’s been here, we shouldn’t be surprised when he scores great goals, he’s scored a lot of goals for this football club and there will be a bagful more for him to score.

“He doesn’t mind off the left, off the right, down the middle, he’s a joy to work with.

“He’s getting better daily I would suggest. His positional play, he’s getting more disciplined about his role in the team.”

The 23-year-old, who claimed an assist for Rovers’ second equaliser, has became their go-to man after the injury to Bradley Dack in December.

Armstrong is clear at the top of the scoring charts, and Mowbray believes it would have been a close run thing had Dack, who had nine before injury struck, remained fit.

He added: “That’s a lot of goals out of the team, and you’d have to say that if Bradley had played all season then it would been pretty tight all season who was going to be top scorer.

“That shows how many goals we’ve lost from our team, but that shows how well the team has functioned without Bradley. That said, he’s a top talent and we’ve missed him.

“Adam has stepped up when we’ve needed him to and yet I feel as though the last couple of games, particularly the away games at Wigan and Barnsley, be more clinical and we win those games as well.

“We would have been talking about an ambition of the top six, where we’re going to finish and how many points we’re going to get.

“Yet that has drifted past us. We’re talking to the team about performance levels and see if we can find a performance level that can get us three points, which we did.

“We’ll move on the next one and not worry about targets, win the next game and try and win the next four.”

Cardiff had been unbeaten since the re-start, and kept four clean sheets in their previous five matches. But Rovers were unfortunate to be behind at the break, and put in an accomplished second half performance to move up to ninth in the table.

“On the balance of play I think we deserved it. At half-time we were struggling to think that we’re getting beat again because I think the first half performance warranted more,” Mowbray said.

“I think it was the right result in the end on the balance of play.

“The last few games, okay Leeds are a great side but we could have scored three goals, but our inability to score goals against Wigan and Barnsley, we could have taken points from those games.

“We took our chances here which we haven’t been doing, but the balance of play was similar to what we’ve been producing.”

Referee Matthew Donohue failed to award Rovers what looked a certain penalty, after Samuel went down under the challenge of Curtis Nelson.

Thankfully for the visitors they scored in their next attack, Samuel picking himself off the turf to tap home from close range.

“The man in the middle had a difficult night. The fourth official seemed to be refereeing the game from where I was. I could hear him what to do, what was a foul or not,” said Mowbray, after a puff of his cheeks when asked about the officials.

“Thankfully within 20 seconds the ball was in the net anyway, and that was the end of the conversation.

“If we had lost then I’d be moaning like hell about the referee but we won so I’ll let him get on with his career.”