Blackburn boss Mowbray insists Kenilworth Road stalemate was no 'beauty contest'

Blackburn Rovers boss Tony Mowbray felt his side’s goalless draw at Luton on Saturday could definitely not have been described as a ‘beauty contest.’

The visitors, shorn of star striker Ben Brereton-Diaz due to international duty with Chile, on-loan Brighton winger Reda Khadra who had a tight hamstring and influential midfielder Joe Rothwell, failed to ever really look like making it 10 wins from 13 Championship clashes at Kenilworth Road.

In fact the closest they came was a free kick from Joe Rankin-Costello that was easily turned over the bar by keeper James Shea in the second half as Rovers remained second in the table.

Luton had the two best opportunities in the first half, Kal Naismith scuffing wide and Cameron Jerome hitting the post, but the second period, although not lacking commitment and effort, saw both defences on top.

Speaking afterwards, Mowbray said: “I said that to the team, we’re disappointed with the performance, but it wasn’t a game for either team.

"It wasn’t a beauty contest, it was about digging in and not making the mistakes that would cost you a 1-0 defeat.

“I don’t know how Nathan (Jones) feels, let’s just both take the point, forget about the game.

"I don’t think we’ll be spending too long on breaking it down and looking at why we didn’t do this and why we didn’t do that.

"The first hour was really tough with the weather, the wind was pretty ferocious, swirling out there, both teams were playing one touch just trying to put the team on the defence, and that’s how I see it.

"We had a lot of injuries, Nathan had a lot of injuries, the big centre forward (Elijah Adebayo) didn’t play and the big centre half (Sonny Bradley), the captain didn’t play.

"He might have been a danger for him late on in the box, if he had the power of those two players and yet if we had our strikers fit it might have made some difference as well, as we had a tough time with our front players today.”