Blackburn head coach Jon Dahl Tomasson was pleased his depleted side bounced back from consecutive Championship defeats to beat Cardiff 1-0.

There was not much between the two sides in a scrappy encounter, summed up by Bradley Dack’s winner in the 48th minute which found the bottom left corner via a wicked deflection.

It was reward for their endeavour, though Cardiff will rue Mark Harris and Gavin Whyte not making the most of their first-half opportunities, with the latter denied by a superb Jake Garrett challenge.

Third-placed Rovers have given themselves breathing space from the other play-off chasers and after naming a side that contained nine players who have started the last three games, Tomasson was keen to credit the players for digging in.

He said: “Very pleased to get the win. It was a difficult game against a Cardiff team who came with a game-plan, 5-4-1, a bit of a wall to play through.

“I think we started the game really well, a lot of energy, good football, in the first half.

“At half-time, we spoke about solutions to get even more dangerous, and scored immediately afterwards so it was great that the boys took that on board.

“We could have scored more goals, and in the end, it was a typical game in the Championship at this time. It was a great win and it was great to hear our fans towards the end.

“Overall, great to start the new year with three points, a clean sheet and a good performance, so a big compliment to the lads.

“You can see we’ve been stretched and the boys really needed to dig in. I think it was a well deserved victory.”

Cardiff have won two of their last 13 and the league’s lowest scorers have not netted in their last three.

Mark Hudson felt his side lacked belief, saying: “We were resilient in the first half. We didn’t start the second half as we wanted and then we are chasing the game and it is difficult to break down a good side.

“The shape change maybe didn’t suit us. We had a couple of moments but didn’t have cutting edge or belief around the box.

“I’m extremely frustrated. I thought by changing shape we’d get more attacking threat in the game but that didn’t seem to be the case.

“They scored, we tried to change it up but didn’t really pose any threat on their goal. We started the second half the way we did and then we’re chasing the game.

“We’ve just got to keep working. We’ve got to keep believing in front of goal, believe that we can create and have faith in our ability.”