It is billed by many as the Rovers turning point under Tony Mowbray, including by those in the dressing room, and it came three years ago today.

An injury-time Queensy Menig goal sent Boundary Park bouncing as Oldham Athletic snatched a last-gasp victory against Rovers, on this day in 2017.

In what was the first league meeting between the sides in 24 years, as 3,500 expectant Rovers fans packed into the away end having seen their side win six out of their previous eight games.

However, defeat to the Latics was the fourth in their opening 11 fixtures, and left Rovers 12 points behind the automatic promotion places.

Three years on, they sit sixth in the early season Championship standings, and after that Oldham defeat, they went on to lose just two of their next 35 League One matches to clinch promotion at a canter.

Six of the starting XI (Paul Caddis, Elliott Ward, Charlie Mulgrew, Elliott Bennett, Craig Conway and Peter Whittingham) on that day were aged 28, or over.

That’s s a stark contrast to the current side which had just four starters over the age of 25 for their most recent Championship fixture against Cardiff City.

There were personnel changes as a result of that Oldham defeat, focused mainly on adding extra mobility and creativity. Paul Downing came in for Ward, who would start just once more for the club, while Ryan Nyambe began to cement the right back spot as Caddis would start just three more league fixtures.

Bradley Dack and Danny Graham had been peripheral figures up to then, both used off the bench in the Oldham defeat, when at that stage they had just two league goals between them. Fast forward to May, and they had 31 more.

That came about after a switch from largely 4-4-2 previously to 4-2-3-1, and an acceptance that Rovers might not be able to pass their way out of League One as they would previously have hoped.

These were changes that stood the test of time, helping Rovers become established in the Championship.

“We could have played until next week and not scored a goal, the creativity and the movement of the players at the top end of the pitch was really poor,” Mowbray said after the game.

“We have to be a better football team than that and we weren’t. We have to be miles better, I’ve said that to the players and let’s see if we can manage that.”

It’s fair to say over an extended period of time they have done that.

Mowbray could see what needed to be changed, and wasn’t stubborn enough to admit that what had been tried wasn’t working.

In his defence, he didn’t have the personnel he would have liked available, or fully fit, at that time, with Darragh Lenihan a long-term absentee, and Downing still getting up to speed after a last-gasp deadline day move from MK Dons.

Dack too had suffered hamstring issues soon after his arrival, but it was the renaissance of Danny Graham, whose time at the club looked to be coming to an end in those early months having lost his place to Dominic Samuel and Marcus Antonsson, that was just as key.

But so too was the realisation that they had to defend higher up the pitch having allowed the central defenders to be bullied by Craig Davies.

“I thought our defence played too deep but we have talked about that in the past with the personnel we’ve got, it’s difficult to press the game too much and play a high line and we got caught a bit in between,” he said.

“The jigsaw puzzle isn’t in place, if you have a mobile centre half you can squeeze the game a lot higher, keep the lines really tight, but we can’t do that at the minute and it makes the pitch a bit spread for us.”

There have been big moments since, understandably given the timeframe, whether it be the Shrewsbury win in January 2018 from which Rovers accelerated away from the chasing pack to win promotion at a canter.

His first season back in the Championship wasn’t without ups and down, a home win over Wigan in April 2018 helping ease any fears over a possible nervy end to that campaign.

Then in November 2019, those nervy late home wins over Sheffield United and Barnsley eased what was becoming a difficult time for the manager, and players, not least after throwing a two goal lead away at Preston the previous month.

But even three years on, you’d be going some not to pick out the 1-0 defeat at Oldham as a big turning point. The anger directed at the players from the packed away end resonated, was the hangover of relegation and expectation of immediate promotion too much?

Inside the dressing room, the feelings were made clear, as revealed by Charlie Mulgrew when looking back on the promotion campaign.

He said: “There was ups and downs over the season. Oldham away was a big, big down. I’ll never forget that.

“Sitting in the dressing room, the manager basically asked ‘where are we going with our careers here, what are we thinking?’

“In my mind, that was a big changing point, because we needed to get it sorted.”

With some fine tweaks and tinkering, sort it they did. Three years on, and a different promotion dream the target, it’s a very different feel now.