JOE Rothwell admits this season has been a bit of a frustrating one for him as he has struggled for game time in his first year with Rovers.

The midfielder has been handed nine starts in the Championship by Tony Mowbray since joining the club in June from Oxford United.

The 24-year-old scored his first Rovers goal in the 2-0 win against Derby on April 9 and then doubled his tally with a stunner in the win away at Nottingham Forest last time out on Saturday.

“It’s been a bit of a frustrating time for me this season,” Rothwell said.

“I’ve not played as much as I would have liked but the gaffer’s put a bit of faith in me now and put me in the team.

“Hopefully, I can keep repaying that faith.”

Rothwell opened the scoring at the City Ground last weekend with sweetly-struck, curling effort just before the half hour mark that set Mowbray’s men on their way to victory.

“It was a nice one,” he said.

“I just cut inside and as soon as it left my boot, I knew it was going in, so I was already off celebrating.

“I’ve not scored too many in my life, so that’s the best one.

“It’s a magnificent stadium, it’s a team who have been there and done everything so it’s nice to go there and score a goal like that.”

The former Manchester United man believes his side are amongst the best in the Championship, but they need to produce week in, week out to prove that, Rovers 15th in the table ahead of travelling to Queens Park Rangers on Friday.

“I think as we’ve shown over the last couple of games, we’re right up there,” Rothwell said.

“It’s just a matter of getting that consistency going now.

“We started well throughout the season and then we had a bit of a dip in form where we’ve kind of fallen away a little bit.

“Now we’re in form again, we probably don’t want the season to end when it is going to.

“Hopefully, we can take these results, carry them on in to the end of the season and take them in to next year.”

Rothwell, who has come on off the bench 20 times in the league this year, highlighted how every team goes through a dip in form - the problem was Rovers’ lasted longer than usual.

“Every team has them, ours just went on a bit longer than we would’ve liked,” he said.

“Over the last few weeks, even before we started to get the results, we were playing well but we just couldn’t put the ball in the net.

“Over the last few games we’ve managed to turn that around.”

Boss Mowbray has said some younger players will get some game time in the closing games of the season and Rothwell believes there is plenty of talent coming through.

“We’ve seen some of the under 23s train with us everyday and there’s a couple of players in there who do stand out,” he said.

“Hopefully, if the gaffer gives them a chance then they can come in and take it.

“I think we’ve just got to try and win every game now.

“We’ve got to go into every game and be very positive off the back of these two results and win as many as we can.”