I ALWAY felt the strength of the West Brom side would be Hughes and Roberts.

I've seen an awful lot of Jason Roberts at Bristol Rovers. He was immense in the Second Division - quick and strong and the goals he scored were there for all to see.

We were a little worried about him and Lee Hughes but perhaps this was a good time to come and play West Brom because they have not got used to playing with each other.

We contained them well until the 'old timer' Bob Taylor, who scored a magnificent goal against us last season, nearly did us on the far post with a header he put just over. But we kept that clean sheet that was so important.

We expected a very competitive start from West Brom, which we got, but I think we contained their biggest threat and started to get ourselves in the game. We had an unfortunate injury to Simon Charlton, who pulled a hamstring, but I have to say for the rest of the the game Leam Richardson did an excellent job in replacing him. So that wasn't too big a blow.

Not conceding the first goal was important because if you go 1-0 down away from home the statistics show that you only have somethig like an 85 per cent chance of winning. That's why it's always you aim to keep a clean sheet.

As things worked out we went 1-0 up with a good goal - a move down the right hand side, nice passing, flowing movement and we even overleaded in the box. I think John O'Kane was in there too and he could have put it in if Isaiah hadn't. But it was a lovely finish in the bottom corner, side footed - in fact both goals were an example of how to finish. You don't have to blast everything, you just need to guide it in with a little bit of pace, round the keeper.

That brought us a fantastic victory and a very important clean sheet. That's one in two now so there's only 20 more to go and we'll have achieved one of our main objectives.

We needed Dean Holdsworth on because he was a bigger man for us up front. We put a few balls up to him and he did well. We needed someone to mess their centre-halves up and Deano's very good at that.

You're always glad when you've got your important strikers fit. He's the most expensive buy this club has ever made and he'd got a lot to prove this year, hoepfully going on from where he finished last season when he was absolutely magnificent for us towards the back end. I want him to emulate those performances again as soon as we get him fit and as soon as we possibly can because if he hits his goalscoring form, we'll be going a long way towards getting into the right part of the division.