Paul Ince shows his old buss he's the Guv'nor!

Paul Ince celebrated his first Premier League triumph at Ewood Park after proving to mentor Roy Hodgson that he has what it takes to make it as a manager.

The hugely experienced Fulham boss always predicted that his former player at Inter Milan was top Guv'nor materialandhemay just have been right.

Hodgson didn't exactly look overjoyed for Ince later - after all he'd just seen a point slip away - but he admitted: "Paul's doing well. That's two wins and a draw for him and hehas tobe happy with that.

"He had Rovers working veryhardandthey were very aggressive in the second half-then they got the break and we didn't."

MattDerbyshire collected the glory, grabbing the winner six minutes from time to finish off a high-class move that was out of context with most of the rest of a grisly game.

Yet Ince had the widest smile in the place, and well might he have, at the way he pulled his team together in the face of successive four-goal losses and new injury problems.

With four points from his first four games and Rovers starting thedayin thebottom three, questions had already been posed about the wisdom of bringing him in from MK Dons as Mark Hughes's replacement.

Ince said: "It's been a perfect day, our first home league win and a clean sheet.

"Mr Hodgson's a very good friend of mine so I feel a touch sorry for him but I have to be delighted. My players were awesome."

Against a Fulham side that will surely not have to pull off a second successive great escape, so organised and hardworking are they under Hodgson, Ince deployed wing back Brett Emerton as a central midfielder.

And it worked.

Hissubstitutions worked too.

And nothing worked better than thesuperb four-man combination that cost the Cottagers a point. Tugay, the first of his introductions, touched to Chilean international Carlos Villanueva.

Rovers's second substitute of the afternoon clipped forward brilliantly for Roque Santa Cruz, whose header across the box was buried by Derbyshire, Ince's last throw of the dice.

What worked for Ince, too, was Paul Robinson.

Hedenied Andy Johnson the perfect start after two minutes when he parried the striker's expertly struck volley.

Exactly one hour later he and the same former international colleague came face to face again and once more Robinson triumphed in style, while his whole game looked like the way it was when he first broke into the England team.

Emerton hit a post while Mark Schwarzer produced a fine parry to stop Santa Cruz on the day that Ince suggested he is, indeed, the right man for the job.

DID YOU KNOW?

Fulham last won at Rovers in December 2003. Lucas Neill scored for Blackburn in the sixth minute but Fulham stuck back to win 3-1.

STAT ATTACK

at EWOOD PARK ATT: 19,398

How they rated

BLACKBURN

Subs: Tugay (Pederson) 5, Villanueva (Roberts) 5, Derbyshire (Treacy) 7.

FULHAM

Subs: None used.

Shots

6 off target 7

2 on target 4

Story of the game

4 Corners 3

16 Fouls Conceded 12

3 Offsides 6

2 Yellow 0

0 Red 0

MAN OF THE MATCH

8 PAUL ROBINSON A return to the England squad won't seem so far off after the kind of performance he put in here.

MANAGERS

P INCE

7 Responding superbly to pressure.

R HODGSON

6 Had no answer to winner.

Referee L Probert Never flustered 6

Possession

BLACKBURN 52%

FULHAM 48%

Next four games

BLACKBURN

NEWC'LE (A)

MAN UTD (H)

BOLTON (A)

M'BORO (H)

FULHAM

WHAM (H)

WBROM (A)

SUN'LAND (H)

PORTS'TH (A)

KEEP UP WITH ALL THE BIG STORIES AT SUNDAYMIRROR.CO.UK