After bagging his second league goal for the club since his permanent return in the summer, the smile was hard to wipe off Sam Gallagher’s face following the forward’s goalscoring exploits off the bench which sealed Rovers’ third win in as many matches, as they edged past Stoke City by a 2-1 scoreline.
“I don’t mind being a sub, if I can come off the bench and score the winner every week! I’m very happy with the goal, but any winning goal, no matter who scores it is special and one you enjoy, but to get it myself was very special. The goal and the win were the ‘icing on the cake’ for the team after such a positive week. This spell shows the ‘beauty of the Championship’ when everything goes well. You can pick up points, left, right and centre, but it’s been a good game, a good week and a good month overall for us as a club.
“We’re beginning to feel the rewards of all our hard work throughout the month and the season, after this result. The belief that we are a good team who can win games is there within the dressing room. We’ve possibly had an issue with confidence throughout the team, but if you see the different sides that we’ve put out over the past month, you’ll see that we’re a tight-knit group where everyone’s ready to step in and do a job.
“Everyone was fantastic today. You see the likes of Benno (Elliott Bennett) with his work-rate and what he did for the goal after he came on. Everyone was excellent. DG (Danny Graham) was the first one to come over and congratulate me at full-time. I think it was the whole ‘strikers’ union’ coming into play(!) He’s as happy to see me score as I would be if he bagged the winner, so we’ll enjoy the moment and move onto the next game with confidence and concentration.
“This week has been a big one for us and for our season. We’ve managed to shoot ourselves up the table with the nine points from three wins and it shows what a good week and good set of results can do to a team, in this league. Hopefully there’s more of this to come and we can build on the solid base that we’ve provided for ourselves with these victories, in the coming weeks. We could feel the support of the fans and their willingness to get behind us and help us secure the victories. They dragged us through the last five minutes today and kept us going, just as much as the Stoke fans were doing to their side when they were on top. It was like having a 12th man at the end there, they were all brilliant and we thank them as a group.”
