Tony Mowbray has told his players ‘this is your team’ as he hopes a strong bond in the dressing room can be the foundation for a strong season.

Rovers have 16 points from nine games and face back-to-back away trips to Huddersfield Town tonight and Blackpool on Saturday aiming to extend their unbeaten start on the road heading into the international break.

An emphatic fourth win of the season against Cardiff City on Saturday cemented their spot in the top six, with Mowbray feeling the dressing room dynamic has been key to their early season form.

That has also allowed the new signings to have more of a watching brief in the early weeks, something Mowbray says will be a benefit moving forward, knowing all five will have a part to play as the games roll by.

He told the Lancashire Telegraph: “It’s a benefit for the team because they don’t really know how I work, what I do, the demands I put on them.

“Sometimes it’s not bad for them to sit behind me and hear the information that’s going onto the pitch so that when they get game-time, and I’m sure they will all impact this season at some stage, they will know of the information that’s coming their way.

“They have to integrate into the group and they are doing that pretty well, generally it’s a young dressing room and there’s a naivety about it.

“They’re all good pals, it’s a young dressing room but you can tell they all like each other, they all want to do extra training and are driving and competing with each other to try and be better.

“(John) Buckley might watch someone else do shooting and then he wants to do shooting, it’s the same with (Tyler) Magloire and (Hayden) Carter wanting to work on their game because they see (Darragh) Lenihan doing it, and when (Ryan) Nyambe is out there doing his crossing, (Lenni) Cirino wants to go and do some crossing from the other side.

“It’s internally driving each other, they all want to be out there working hard and let’s see how far they can take it.

“As I tell them, this is their team, be proud of that, and if someone is slipping off the work ethic don’t let anyone take liberties, we have to be a team that works hard and be hard to beat so that if we play a physical team, or a technical team, we have got the answers and the hard work is the base of it all.”

Rovers have two more games before the international break, and coming off the back of a week to draw-up plans for Cardiff after the 0-0 draw with Barnsley, Mowbray says preparations have been very different to the build-up to the Huddersfield fixture.

He said: “From a coach’s perspective, you want to prepare your team for who you’re coming up against and you get a full week to prepare and know all the little things about the opposition and you can study three, four, five games of how they are going to play.

“This doesn’t hardly give you any time to prepare.

“For the team, we’ll have a presentation on the strengths and weaknesses of the opposition, we’ll walk through some stuff and then we’ll go and take them on.

“It feels like just one day preparation because Sunday is relaxation and making sure they’re okay, not putting their boots on, and Monday is one day prep before going to play the game, as opposed to five days on a Saturday to Saturday.”