Andri Gudjohnsen and Dapo Afolayan both struck in the second half as Mowbray’s men returned to winning ways in the Championship.

Joel Piroe pulled one back to set up a nervy finish, but Rovers stood firm through five minutes of stoppage time to secure the points.

“We all know how emotional football is,” Mowbray said after the final whistle. “When you lose a game, people generally see the negative sides of the performance, the work rate or whatever it is.

“But I've been pretty happy with this group of players since the day I walked in. I think they care about each other, they work hard for each other.

“We're delighted today, that's a tough game. You can feel their quality, their power and their strength. We scored at good times. I thought we always carried a threat.

“We allowed them to have the ball a fair bit. It's not wise to try and chase down, hunt down really good football teams who can pick the right pass and get through you, and all of a sudden they’re on your backline. I thought we were pretty disciplined today, we had some counter attack threat.

“I thought we were happy enough at half time - let's just be a little bit braver, let's get the first pass away, let's run, let's make sure they feel our qualities. Otherwise, you never get them off your back if you spend all game defending.

“It’s really good on the back of the results, not necessarily the performances. I thought Stoke was a pretty good performance and deserved more than we got.

“Today, the work rate of the team, the endeavour and the commitment in such a big game - because you can feel those big games, they bring 7,000 fans - it was positive for us and happy enough with it.”

Rovers now head into the international break – and the derby at Burnley later this month – on the back of an excellent victory.

“Our lads rose to the challenge of it against, as I say, a very good team,” the head coach continued.

“Let's put the points in the bag, let's have a breather, take a gulp of air and we'll start again with a nice easy one in a couple of weeks' time!

“You know that's tongue-in-cheek. I've just said to them there, the lads who've never been around this fixture - you think that was a big game today, get ready for two weeks' time.”