Nigel Clough a happy man after Burton’s victory over Bristol Rovers

Nigel Clough said he was “unbelievably pleased” with his Burton side’s resilience and solid defending as they hit Bristol Rovers with a late two-goal salvo to record a first home league win of the season.

Lucas Akins turned sharply in the box to fire home with three minutes of normal time remaining before turning provider to send Ryan Edwards through from the halfway line in stoppage time to seal a satisfying win.

“We are unbelievably pleased with that” said Clough. “We have still got 38 league games to go and I don’t think we will get a better win than that in the next 38.

“With how tough it was, all through the game, especially for long periods in the second half where they put us under a great deal of pressure and we defended, to a man, brilliantly.

“I thought because of the way we defended in that period we earned the chance to go and win the game in the last five minutes.”

Albion enjoyed the better of a tight first half before Rovers came roaring back in the second period and with injuries hampering the Brewers they had to hold on before striking late.

“We played alright in the first half. I thought we edged it but at the start of the second half the tide turned and then we lose Jake Buxton, Oliver Sarkic and then Liam Boyce and it makes it tougher.

“That’s why the character shown in the last 15 or 20 minutes was magnificent.

“After losing our first two games here, very unluckily, maybe we deserve a little bit of luck.”

Rovers boss Graham Coughlan cut a disconsolate figure after the game, with his side still looking for an away goal or point in this season’s League One campaign.

“It’s a sickener to be quite honest with you,” he said. “We didn’t deserve to lose that game. We should have won. They took the two chances that they created and we didn’t take ours.”

Coughlan challenged his side at half-time and Rovers took the game to Albion for large parts of the second half but could not find a way through despite making attacking changes late on in search of a winner.

“I was blunt and honest with them,” the Irishman continued. “We were sauntering along with Burton in the first half. We had gears to go through and we didn’t go through them.

“I’ve seen this many a time in football where you just run along with a game and you wait for them to land the first punch and then you react. I never thought that Burton were going to turn us over 2-0 to be quite honest.

“It’s a hard one to take. For the second game now we have acquitted ourselves really, really well and created chances and then come away with defeats against Brighton and now Burton.”