IMPRESSIVE as an impact substitute against Derby County and Watford, and a solid performer against Huddersfield Town, it would be fair to say that Ryan Tunnicliffe has enjoyed an encouraging start to his Blackburn Rovers career.

There has, however, been one major blemish.

That being, of course, his part in Rotherham United’s second goal in the 2-0 defeat at the New York Stadium.

Tunnicliffe’s failure to clear his lines resulted in Jason Steele blasting his dangerous back pass against the back of Luciano Becchio and seeing the ball rebound horribly into the empty net.

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To Tunnicliffe’s credit he refused to let the ‘one in a million’ mistake swallow him up at the time.

And yesterday, when it was brought up at the press conference ahead of Rovers’ trip to his former club Ipswich Town tomorrow, the on-loan Fulham midfielder had no intention of shying away from it.

“Some players may have found it difficult (to carry on) but not me,” said Tunnicliffe, who was one of Rovers’ better performers on a night to forget in South Yorkshire.

“I did the kick-off straight after the goal and I said to Jordan (Rhodes), ‘I owe us a goal here’, and that was my mindset for the rest of the game.

“I think you saw I came out in the second half and I was chasing people down and trying to get the ball back for us.

“As I say, I owed the team a goal, it was just unfortunate that I couldn’t get one for us.

“It was a one in a million thing. I got it out of my head the second after I did it and just concentrated on helping us getting back in the game.

“I don’t think I’ll ever do it again in my career, it was just one of those things, a stupid mistake at the time and one that I got out of my head straight away.”

Tunnicliffe and Rovers attempted to banish the memory of the disappointing defeat in their next outing, the clash with Roses rivals Huddersfield.

But despite having 20 shots – to add to the 17 against Rotherham and 30 against Watford – Gary Bowyer’s side had to settle for a frustrating 0-0 draw.

“The gaffer drummed into us before the game that as we didn’t play too well against Rotherham, he was looking for a reaction,” said Tunnicliffe, whose first goal of his career earned Rovers their 2-2 draw with Watford.

“And afterwards he said we had given it him because we dug in, kept a clean sheet and kept trying to the end to get the winner.”

The stalemate meant Rovers went into the international break without a win in three games.

It is a run they will attempt to halt against the Championship’s most in-form team tomorrow.