The local hero postpones the post-mortem

Why do we even bother with this anymore?

A perfectly reasonable question that pretty much every Blackburn Rovers fan will have asked themselves more than once since November 2010. Those of us that are left anyway.

And it's a question that even the more optimistic of Rover folk would struggle to present you with a convincing and satisfactory answer to... save for a rather contrived statement about loyalty and force of habit.

But, lo and behold, after 95 minutes of honest effort but very little in the way of productivity and quality from a disjointed Rovers rabble, the answer finally came. A moment of pure bliss, relief and emotion - in the one match that the Rovers faithful invest more importance in than any other.

Having pretty much copped an afternoon's worth of abuse from the away end, the local boy David Dunn exacted the perfect revenge. It wasn't to end in the victory Rovers have become more accustomed to in the Cotton Mill derby over the years but it certainly felt like one given the circumstances.

It was the one man that Burnley wouldn't have wanted to break their hearts who dealt the blow, but it was fitting that the one player from Ewood Park who really did visibly embrace the importance of the fixture was the one who kept the "streak" of soon to be 34 years intact.

The post-match bantz (as the kids or Jonjo Shelvey call it) was just as tremendous.

"You celebrated as if you had won the Champions League" was a popular put down from the Claret faithful - quite how else we were supposed to celebrate that moment I've absolutely no idea? Maybe a warm round of applause followed up with a polite cup of tea and scones afterwards?

"Where did the referee get all that injury time from?" was another... Probably from the fortnight it took Ross Wallace to leave the pitch whilst being substituted and the excessive rolling around/Riverside stand baiting Kieran Trippier managed to sustain after the heinous crime of having his shirt tugged would be two fairly natural suggestions in return.

But it would be remiss of us not to pay due attention to quite how ordinary Blackburn Rovers were on the day. This wasn't the Sam Allardyce and Graeme Souness type side of a few years back that always looked assured and superior to our neighbours, this was the Venky's/Steve Kean/Michael Appleton version that started on a level footing to the folk from down the road.

And without David Dunn, who aside from being a bit too greedy for my liking at times, was by far the best player on the pitch. The others were, for the want of a better word, mediocre.

Well except for the goalkeeper who, erratic kicking aside, was superb. In fact he gave us a match to try and draw come the end. The "Kean Out" era of 2011 and 2012 is very much shaping up to be the era of "Kean In" of 2013.

In the main though we were unsure in possession, too direct in our tactics and unable to create much of note. Everyone outside of alleged fat boy Dunn - boy I'd like to be that brand of chubby - looked like they had received precisely zero instructions of how to behave once they got within 20 yards of the Burnley goal.

Rhodes was off colour (again), Best was neutralised and Cameron Stewart was about as effective as a bare footed man on a floor full of broken glass.

Manager Michael Appleton for his part must surely realise that his honeymoon period is over. The negative and one dimensional tactics aren't going to work long term, nor is his insistence on coupling them with a standard 4-4-2 formation. Patience and a bit of luck with injuries are going to be the required with the App and the jury will stay out until the summer barring a burst in form which seems unlikely at present.

The glory of the final minutes shouldn't cloud the simple fact that future performances will need to be improved from the one which was served up yesterday, even if the leveler did stop the likely rage and search for accountability that would have only come with a defeat.

The play off push is well and truly over and the sole goal of the remaining weeks of the season is to keep our head above the dreaded water line of the relegation zone.

We're going to need some inspiration from somewhere in the coming weeks and for all the talk of youthful players and bigging up the big money signings, it's most likely to come from the one source we nearly all forgot about and were told was a spent force.

He well and truly earned his moment in the sun yesterday.

The rest of the players could learn an awful lot about playing for Blackburn Rovers from the "fat kid from Great Harwood".