"We showed real resilience and character to fight back from a really bad start," said Cowley.

"We were poor in the first 10 minutes and they deserved to score, but credit to the players for picking up. We were worthy winners in the end.

"I'm proud of the players, because that was a very important win. It wasn't perfect, it was far from perfect, but they climbed the mountain that they made for themselves.

"We're going to have to be imperfect for a long time, but we're making good progress."

There was special praise for Mounie, who bagged his second goal in three games to clinch three welcome points and propel Huddersfield further away from the relegation zone.

"2019 hasn't gone all Steve Mounie's way, but he ends it with a fantastic goal to win us the game," said Cowley.

"It was a brilliant goal to win any game. All the players were singing his name in the changing room. In fact I think he was singing his own name in there.

"Everybody understands the cause now – and we're all fighting for the same cause.

"Previously there was a lot of disharmony maybe, but we've all got a common goal."

Frustrated Rovers boss Tony Mowbray saw his side's impressive eight-game unbeaten run ended – and they have still not beaten Huddersfield in their last seven meetings.

Mowbray said: "It was a frustrating day for us, I'm really disappointed.

"For 20 minutes we controlled the game and we scored a goal and could have scored another goal.

"They changed their formation and went more direct and their strikers played back to front, which made it a scrappier game.

"But we're really disappointed with the first goal especially, we shouldn't be conceding a goal like that.

"The game became very scrappy and lacked quality. We never got our fluency going after the first 20 minutes.

"We conceded really poor goals. It's difficult for me to be overly critical of them because that was our first defeat in nine games, but with the aspirations we've got we should be coming here and trying to take three points.

"But once they turned into the type of game that they did it turns into a 50-50 type of game. And one which we came out on the wrong end of.

"We didn't really produce any controlled football in the second half. It was a disappointing result and a disappointing day."