Rovers manager Sam Allardyce paid tribute to Niko Kalinic's quick reactions for helping to secure an opening day victory at home to Everton.

The young Croatian capitalised on a mistake by Tim Howard after 14 minutes to mark the 10th anniversary of the death of Jack Walker with a wonderful 1-0 win.

Sam said: "It's obviously Jack's anniversary, which is a big thing for a lot of people here at Blackburn. And if it's helped in any way that we've got a victory on that day, that's fantastic for us and the club as a whole.

"And if you count the back end of last season, that's three Premier League wins on the trot by the way, which is a very difficult thing to do in this day and age.

"We asked the players to start today where they left off last season and I'm glad to say that every man and the two substitutes that came on did their job very, very well today. 

"A fantastic piece of ability by Niko Kalinic, and it can be overshadowed by Tim Howard's mistake I know, but the ability to be taken by surprise, which everybody was when Tim dropped the ball, but then to capitalise on it fully with a really, really good swivel and finish was obviously why we bought him.

"So we hope that gives him huge confidence to know that he can go on and score more goals in the Premier League."

Kalinic, who joined Rovers from Hajduk Split last summer, scored two goals in the top flight last season and Big Sam is confident he will score more this time around.

"I think that this year he will, if we continue to provide the sort of chances that we can," added the manager.

"The chances didn't fall to Niko today apart from that one, but there was a great chance for Martin Olsson, following a super ball from Morten, and that was before the goal.

"There was a great chance for Mame Diouf to make his mark and he missed that. And there was a great one for Steven Nzonzi's header, so I look at those three gilt-edged chances and say we've scored one and missed three today, which would be about right for us on the ratio for last year.

"But what we've done is that defensive unit has now become united in the belief that scoring one goal, particularly at Ewood, is enough to win us a game of football now.

"And it's not just the defence and the goalie, it was the whole team that last 15 minutes that made sure we stayed at 1-0 and won the game."