Tony Mowbray says Rovers will have to win in all manner of ways after chalking up a third straight away victory at Cardiff City.

Joe Rothwell’s fine individual goal proved to be the difference as Rovers made it 10 Championship games unbeaten, the one moment of quality in a scrappy affair.

They needed to see out the game with 10 men after Ryan Nyambe was shown a second yellow card but held out for a seventh clean sheet in eight matches to move level on points with Bournemouth and continue their remarkable run.

The Cardiff trip was the first of five away games in their next seven fixtures for Rovers who travel to Hull City in midweek, leaving Mowbray delighted to start what appears a tough run on paper with a win.

He said: “The difficulty of this league is that every team is different.

“Whether it’s a physical game, a tactical and technical game, or whether it’s a fight, they’re all different.

“The pitches are starting to deteriorate, let’s see how it pans out.

“Twenty games to go, we have to fight when we need to fight and when there’s a football match make sure we come out on top.

“We’re looking forward to the last 20 games, we’ve given ourselves a platform and a chance but nothing is achieved yet.

“We have some really tough games coming up. It’s a tough run coming but good to get off with three points.”

The game was settled by Rothwell’s third of the season. The midfielder collected a Reda Khadra flick to break forward and curl beyond Alex Smithies from the edge of the box.

“Joe is a Premier League footballer in possession of the ball, I’m not sure there are many who can do what Joe Rothwell does, even in the Premier League, the speed he can travel with the ball and break lines with his running, as opposed to just passing through lines,” Mowbray added.

“He can break lines with his ability to run with the ball at high speed. Then to control the finish he did at high speed was an amazing goal.

“We’re delighted he’s playing for our team. He’s growing all the time and that’s the quality he possesses.

“In this league he can manage most teams.”

It was Rovers’ resilience that shone through most as despite not being at their best on the ball, they defended manfully to see out another clean sheet.

Thomas Kaminski made one key save to deny Curtis Nelson midway through the second half but the Belgian wasn’t overly extended thanks to some excellent work infront of him.

While Mowbray wanted to see more quality on the ball, he was delighted with their application without it.

“For the first 20 minutes I felt as though we were in control, moving the ball around, looked confident, scored a great goal,” he said.

“Then I think the game became bitty so that it helped Cardiff, it seemed to me that every tackle seemed to be a booking.

“By the nature of the stoppages and if we were giving them away the ball was coming into our box, they forced a corner and few more corners and long throws.

“They have some good footballers Cardiff but it became a little bit not predictable, we were very conscious of how they play and I do think their quality players are getting the ball down and moving it around more but their main strength is probably still their ability to put it in your box and score from set plays.

“Almost half of their goals have been through set plays and the fact the game was very bitty, did it play into their hands because they had the ability to put the ball into our box?

“It kept coming in our box but some great resilience today.

“I would have preferred us to play how we did for 20 minutes for 80 minutes but it wasn’t to be. We had to dig in.

“The team have shown that they can keep clean sheets, it’s difficult to get through this team and if anything there was a frustration at the end that we didn’t pick the right pass when we broke away that we couldn’t slide people in to score a second goal and win the game that way.

“Pleased with the resilience, a brilliant clean sheet away. We’ll put the points in the bag and move onto Wednesday.”

There was a surprise as Nyambe left the field after being shown a yellow card for a foul on Perry Ng in the 77th minute.

However, it soon became clear the right back had been booked for a coming together with the same player who was shown a yellow card for a poorly timed challenge on Darragh Lenihan.

Ten bookings in all were issued by referee Matthew Donohue, with Mowbray feeling a lack of supporters inside the ground played its part.

He said of the red card: “It was an accumulation.

“I’ve had Ryan for five years and he’s the nicest lad you could meet, he hasn’t got a red card in him.

“Yet the fact that every tackle was a booking meant an accumulation and a red card for Ryan.

“We adapted well, adjusted, they put (Aden) Flint up top, we put Ayala on and we saw it out.

“There were some great blocks at the end, Kaminski took some great pressure off by taking a couple of long balls and we saw the game out.

“Happy with the points, it was a difficult game, a bit scrappier than we would have normally liked.

“But however you get three points it’s important and we managed to get them today.”