BLACKBURN Rovers boss Gary Bowyer offered no excuses after his side’s nine-game unbeaten run was ended in cruel fashion at Ewood Park yesterday.

Rovers went down to a 2-1 home defeat at Sheffield Wednesday after injury-time substitute Claude Dielna scored with virtually the last kick of the match.

MORE TOP STORIES:

Dielna only beat the recalled Jason Steele, who had been responsible for Kieran Lee’s third-minute opener, with the aid of a deflection off Corry Evans.

But Bowyer was disappointed by the way the Frenchman, for whom it was his first career goal, was allowed to shoot and by the manner of Rovers’ performance in general.

 “It wasn’t a particularly good game and I thought the manner of the three goals matched the quality – they were three poor, scrappy goals,” said Bowyer, who felt referee Stephen Martin should have awarded a second-half penalty for a push on Shane Duffy.

“We have to realise that our level of performance wasn’t good enough. We know that, we’re honest enough.

“We’ve stayed level with it throughout this fantastic run we’ve had and we’re going to stay level with it again.

“Over the last 32 games we’ve lost five so we’re not going to press the panic button or anything silly like that, we’re going to stay level.

“There is plenty of football left, there’s 26 games to go, and we’ve just got to make sure we regroup, put this one to bed and learn from it – learn that you’ve got to work extremely hard to win a game of football in the Championship.

“As I say, I was disappointed with our performance level. What could we have done better? Loads.

“If I was sat here and we’d have been beaten by a fantastic strike, I would put my hands up.

“But we’ve gifted the game to them with the manner of the goals they’ve scored.

“If you look at both we haven’t done very well on either of them.”

Rovers’ first loss since September 30 meant they remained seventh in the standings, one point off the play-off places but now seven from top spot.

Wednesday, after making it back to back victories, moved up to 12th after becoming the first team to win at Ewood since September 17.

Owls boss Stuart Gray, whose side are now unbeaten away from home in five matches, said: “I thought the first 20 minutes we totally dominated it.

“Kieran Lee’s got his goal and we had two or three more opportunities where we got in behind them and then we stopped doing what was getting us our success.

“We allowed Blackburn to come into the game and then there was a 20-minute period in that second half where we’ve had to roll our sleeves up and dig in.

“When Claude went on, it was to give us a bit more of an aerial defensive threat because we felt the ball was going forward a bit early.

“We had it done to us (a last-minute winner) at Millwall at home, it’s a horrible feeling and I feel for Gary but I’ll take it. I believe these things will balance themselves out.”

One week earlier Rovers had scored an injury-time equaliser at Middlesbrough.

And Bowyer said: “We had it last week and we’ve been on the receiving end of it today.

“We didn’t hit the heights we’ve reached over the last month or so and our performance levels, in our opinion, were not good enough.”