FIT-AGAIN centre back Matt Kilgallon insists Blackburn Rovers can get back to having one of the meanest defences in the Championship.

Rovers, who welcome Derby County to Ewood Park tonight, have failed to register a single shut out so far this season after keeping 15 clean sheets in 2013-14.

Their cause has not been helped by a series of injuries to members of their backline.

But Kilgallon is confident the hard work he and his fellow defenders are doing on the training ground with Rovers’ first-team coach and former centre back Craig Short will pay off.

“We want clean sheets,” said Kilgallon, who returned from injury in Saturday’s 3-1 home win over Wigan Athletic.

“Like strikers like scoring goals, we like keeping clean sheets and the goal we conceded on Saturday was a horrible one as it went through players. It’s not like they broke us open and scored a great goal.

“But the next thing you know we were 3-1 up, so that shows that we’re not letting our heads drop.

“But, yes, more clean sheets are needed.

“We’ve got Craig Short here, who’s got great experience as a centre half, and he takes us out there heading balls and working on our positioning.

“But the league now is so fast and teams are going to get chances and good players are going to put them away, so clean sheets are getting harder to get.

“But as the season goes on we’ll definitely get a few. Last season we had one of the best records in the league and we just have to do that again.”

Kilgallon started the campaign in the heart of the Rovers defence.

But the 30-year-old was forced to come off at half-time in the season opener against Cardiff City after hurting his back.

His place in the team was taken by summer signing Alex Baptiste.

Baptiste impressed in his natural position and there is a strong possibility Kilgallon would have had to have waited for his chance had Jason Lowe not been struck down by a foot injury.

Lowe’s absence against Wigan on Saturday meant Baptiste was switched back to right back.

And Kilgallon said: “There’s injuries all the time as there’s so many games and it’s such a physical league.

“When you’re out of the team you want the lads to win. There’s none of that, ‘I hope he has a nightmare or has a beast’. Everyone is together here.

“But it was disappointing to get injured.

“I was out for a few weeks but I trained last week and my got my chance.”

Kilgallon’s impressive performance against Wigan means he is likely to keep his place for tonight’s encounter with last season’s beaten play-off finalists.

He said: “We said as we were going out before the Wigan game, ‘let’s have a good week’.

“We’ve started off with a win but we’ve got to carry it on against Derby and get right at them straight away.

“They’ll know what’s coming as we’re starting to make Ewood a place not many teams like to come to now.

“That’s a nice thing to have and we’ll be up for it.”