Nothing has been achieved is the message to his players from Tony Mowbray who is refusing to get carried away by their current positions.

Victory over Cardiff City extended their unbeaten run in the league to 10 matches, with 26 points from a possible 30, which moved them level with second-placed Bournemouth.

Rovers are up to 49 points after their latest win, which came courtesy of a seventh clean sheet in eight matches.

Mowbray afforded himself a clench of the first at the final whistle as 10-man Rovers held out for victory, but speaking with experience, the manager won’t be looking too far ahead.

He said: “I don’t get excited because I know how tough this league is, I’ve managed in it a lot of years.

“The next game is always there ready to bite you on your backside.

“We’ll get ready for the next game and I’ll drive the team, the anxiety before every game is there but you have to put into them this belief that the processes of how we play can help us win football matches.

“You hope to win every football match but whether it’s good play from them, a mistake from you, a daft refereeing decision, every game can go against you.

“I don’t get excited – 20 games to go, that’s 60 points so we’ll keep going, ticking them off one at a time and see where we go.”

Although not looking ahead in terms of where Rovers could go this season, Mowbray is all too aware of the run of fixtures they are facing.

The Cardiff trip was the first of six away matches in their next eight fixtures, with play-off hopefuls Middlesbrough, Nottingham Forest and Sheffield United all to face.

“You can get in a trap of looking ahead and I see some really, really tough fixtures coming up,” Mowbray said.

“You need to keep a positive mindset and try and win the next one.

“Cardiff away and Hull away, it’s not Bournemouth and Fulham away, but those are games you can lose and you have to be right.

“Middlesbrough and Nottingham Forest at home who are flying, you have to win games like that (Cardiff) to give yourself some confidence that if you nick a draw in a game you’re trying to win, these games can be tough.

“Huddersfield in our last home game they were a really good team, we kept a clean sheet and drew 0-0.

“They’re all tough games is the point I’m trying to make.

“No-one at our club is getting carried away with 20 games to go.”

Rovers’ outstanding recent run has moved them into automatic promotion contention, an expectation that no-one foresaw at the start of the season.

And while they have received many plaudits for this run of form, Mowbray says it doesn’t count for anything currently.

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’re trying to win football matches, the clean sheets are good and we need to keep those players fit and give ourselves the best chance.”