SAM Allardyce believes Saturday’s opening day win was a fitting way to mark the 10-year annive-rsary of Jack Walker’s death.

Blackburn Rovers marked the occasion with their own big screen tribute pre match and Nikola Kalinic’s 14th minute goal secured a 1-0 Premier League win over Everton and the perfect end to a memorable day.

Rovers boss Allardyce, below, said: “Jack’s anniversary is a big thing for a lot of people at Blackburn Rovers and if it has helped in any way that we have got a victory then that is fantastic for the club as whole.

“If you count the back end of last season that is three Premier League wins on the trot by the way.

“That is a very difficult thing to do in the Premier League these days. We asked the players to start off where they left off and every man did their job very, very well today.

“It was a terrific way to start at Ewood again. We have shown the right temp-erament the right amount of creativity and then the right amount of resilience to create a three point start.”

Had Kalinic’s team mates showed similar clinicalness, Rovers would have sealed victory long before Paul Robinson was forced into his only real save of the game in the dying seconds.

Martin Olsson, Steven Nzonzi and Mame Biram Diouf were all guilty of bad misses and Allardyce admits that is something that has to be addressed He said: “I look at those gilt edged chances and say we have scored one and missed three and that would be about right for the ratio from last year.

“We have had four very good chances today and scored one. That is the big disappointment because you have to be more clinical than that.

“What we have done is our defensive unit has become united in the belief that scoring one goal, particularly at Ewood, is enough to win us a game of football now.”

The Rovers boss surprised everyone with his team selection, dropping last season’s player of the year Steven Nzonzi to the substitutes bench in place of Phil Jones.

The 18-year-old defender took to his deep-lying midfield role as though he had played there all his life, with Allardyce full of praise for his performance.

He said: “Steven Nzonzi will be disappointed he didn’t start, he came here last season didn’t expect to play but played every game. This season he hasn’t even got in the starting XI for the first game, but that is the emergence of Phil Jones for you.

“We have dropped him in midfield in pre-season because we know we have two stalwarts in central defence in Chris Samba and Ryan Nelsen and it will be difficult for him to get in there.

“We dropped him in there and you saw today. It doesn’t need a trained eye to see what a player he is. That was a good bonus.”