The returns of Bradley Dack and Lewis Travis will undoubtedly make Rovers stronger in the second half of the season, according to Tony Mowbray.

Rovers find themselves two places, and three points, worse off at the halfway stage than the 2019/20 campaign, but Mowbray is looking behind the statistics and believes there is no question that his side have improved.

He feels they could conceivably be as many as 12 points better off than the 32 they have amassed and his current group stand a much better chance of succeeding that last season.

Mowbray puts some of that down to the goalscoring threat within the team, as well as their ability to control games better, and while accepting they need to tighten up in terms of the goals against column, sees reason to be optimistic moving into the return fixtures.

“I only judge it off what I’ve seen with my eyes, the stats are the stats, you can’t change the stats,” Mowbray explained.

“I know which team I’m happier being in charge of and look forward to playing every Saturday. It feels like we can score goals, dominate games, and even when we don’t score goals we create lots of chances. Some days they go in, some days they don’t.

“But the fact we’re creating chances I think it’s important to do that, because if you’re scrambling 1-0s in games when you only have two or three chances every game, you’re not going to do that every week, in my opinion, unless you’re basing it around a defensive structure.

“But we’re not doing that, we’re basing it off an attacking structure.”

Dack has played four matches since his comeback from 12 months out, while Travis is into the early stages of his comeback two after missing all but two Championship fixtures in the first half of the season.

Mowbray says both still have work to do in a bid to get back to their best, but says their importance to the team is unquestioned.

He added: “Undoubtedly, Dack and Travis are huge players for this football club and will prove that moving forward I’m pretty sure.”

“They’re both still chasing fitness, is Dack between 60 and 70 per cent fit? Probably, match fit that is. He has to play games. Travis is maybe 10 per cent further on, but still short of the Lewis Travis who can run non-stop for 90 minutes and tackle every player on the pitch. He’s still a little bit short of that.

“I won’t jeopardise the team and if I feel I have to leave one of them out and they’re not at 100 per cent and someone else is on the bench then that’s what we’ll do and they’ll have to affect the game from there.”

Rovers are yet to see any matches postponed because of coronavirus related reasons, but they haven’t been short of absences related to Covid.

As well as an injury to Travis in the second match of the season, central defenders Daniel Ayala, Derrick Williams and Scott Wharton have all spent time on the sidelines with injury, with as many as 12 first-team players missing at times.

Rovers will likely need at least another 40 points from their remaining 23 matches to launch a play-off bid, but Mowbray sees the potential to put together a winning run.

“Three points worse off, we could have been 10 points further on, easy, 12 points, games we could and should have won this season,” he said.

“The problems we’ve had with injuries in defence, sometimes we’ve had no left backs, no right backs, we’re currently without three centre halves, and I know every team has those issues, but we’ll see if the season is going to settle down, or if it’ll get worse.

“I do feel that I keep repeating, I believe this team has the potential to win lots and lots of games and yet you have to the players in the positions.

“I don’t moan about not having our best XI because I probably haven’t got a best XI, that depends on the opposition.

“Generally I enjoy this team and we haven’t got the points the performance level of the team has been at.”