TONY Mowbray was cut a frustrated figure as Blackburn Rovers dropped two points at home to Preston North End.

Rovers looked to be heading for all three points until Aiden McGeady struck in the third minute of injury time as Preston claimed a 2-2 draw.

Mowbray’s side had taken the lead nine minutes in to the second half when Craig Conway fired home, after Elliott Bennett had levelled up Tom Barkhiuzen’s opener.

And Mowbray felt his side were on their way to a third three points since he took charge until McGeady’s late leveller.

“I didn’t feel as though we were under that much pressure, I know that they had a lot of the ball and were booting it long to be a big 6’5” centre forward but I thought we were going to see it out,” the head coach said.

“But once excellent bit of skill from Paul Gallagher to slip the ball through three of our players to create the goal was the difference.

“I don’t want to criticise the players too much because I thought they were excellent, the first 10 minutes apart, when the strikers were probably a bit too high.

“After that I thought there was general domination from ourselves with the ball, we deservedly got ourselves in front, but in the end the team are pretty devastated and we’ll have to take it on the chin.

“We have to look at the positives and realise that along the way we have to manage games and see them out better and get three points.

“We managed to do it a couple of times against Wigan and Derby and I thought this would be another occasion.

“It wasn’t to be and we’re left frustrated.”

An example of Rovers’ poor game management came in injury time when Sam Gallagher lost possession in the corner, and Mowbray added: “He knows that – he came in and apologise and that was game management.

“He’s a young player on loan from a Premier League club to try and improve and go through experiences.

“I put him on for his workload, energy and try and prevent them from building up momentum, but he made a poor decision at the death when the clock was ticking down and the last thing we needed to do was to put the ball in the box when the game was finished really, but in the end it wasn’t.”
But Mowbray refused to be too critical on his side who made it a seventh game unbeaten.

He added: “We’re frustrated and disappointed, but it was a great effort again from everyone to get ourselves in to a winning position, the players and the fans.

“I feel as though we have let the fans down a little bit because they were so behind the team.

“I’ve told the players not to be too harsh on themselves because it was a fantastic effort against a dogged, determined and hardworking side.”