Boss Sam Allardyce was a delighted man after he won the battle of the old pals by defeating Phil Brown's Hull City.
The two managers were once side-by-side on the touchline for Bolton Wanderers, but this afternoon they were in opposing dugouts and it was Allardyce and his Rovers side who claimed all three points at the KC Stadium.
Rovers moved out of the bottom three after goals from Stephen Warnock and Keith Andrews gave them a comfortable first half lead, but a late Ian Ashbee strike meant a nervy ending with the Lancashire club holding on, much to the relief of Allardyce.
"It is a huge result for us. We had been put under a huge amount of pressure before this game started with the Middlesbrough result on Saturday.
"We were building up in the week to think it is coming around where they are must win games now even though it is away in the Premier League, we've had to get one from somewhere, and then Middlesbrough beat Liverpool and it made it an even bigger must win game.
"But we've done the job very professionally, dug it out, showed a lot of quality with the two goals we've scored.
"We capitalised on a mistake for the first one but it is a great finish, and then it is a great move for the second one and we put ourselves in a great position."
But with Rovers seemingly coasting towards a comfortable victory, Ian Ashbee's strike 11 minutes from time set up a nervy ending to the game.
"It never looked like it would end like it did though," added the Rovers boss. "It looked like we would see the game out nice and comfortably and then they got a sending off so I thought we'd see this out even more comfortably.
"But we get a sending off that evens it up, then they score, and then there is five added minutes at the end. It only takes a few seconds for something that can be in your favour to completely turn, instead of being comfortable by a Roque's header going in or Vince's pile driver, we end up hanging on a little bit at the end.
"We've done a very professional job in the right way, we knew that Hull would give everything they got, and we knew we had to get our defensive structure right today and capitalise on the pressure when on their back four and we've taken full advantage of that.
"We've played a lot better away from home, Manchester United included, Middlesbrough, Sunderland and haven't won those games, this one we did what we needed to do."
