Rovers assistant Richard O'Kelly pleased with battling performance

"If it had been a boxing match the referee may well have considered calling it off during a 10-15 minute spell in the first half," he said. "So to actually stay in the contest at that stage, and limit the amount of chances they had, showed a great deal of discipline, intelligence and fantastic organisation. "We've had to make changes to the side and bring in people who haven't played much recently, and as the game has progressed they've learnt what they were doing and improved. So we are very pleased. "As I say we had to make a number of changes due to injuries and suspension and when that happens it can take time for players to gell, but I thought that we hit the ground running - particularly in the second half. "We had a good start to the second half and I thought that we had the lions' share of of the play. "The midfield started to create things. We'd probably have liked more of an end product. But we did put their keeper and back-four under pressure. "They are a good side and they''ve got some players and they know what they know what they are doing. "So I was really pleased with the way the whole squad have coped with what has happened in the last week or so. "Losing Brian Stock, who is a key player, was a big loss. We then lost James Coppinger in the morning. "He trained but his calf didn't feel right. We also lost Jason Shackell in the warm-up at Scunthorpe on Saturday. "He's got a bit of a niggle with his Achilles, but we are hoping he'll be fit for the weekend."