Bournemouth manager Jason Tindall hailed his side’s hard-fought 3-2 triumph at home to Blackburn as an important step on the road back to a place in the Premier League.
Arnaut Danjuma came up with a stunning late winner to hand Tindall victory in his first competitive match since replacing Eddie Howe as boss.
Blackburn had twice hit back to equalise after strikes from Jack Stacey and Jefferson Lerma with efforts from Bradley Johnson and Adam Armstrong.
Tindall said: “There were so many ups and downs and so many mixed emotions throughout the game but I am absolutely delighted to pick up my first three points.
“We took great confidence from scoring five goals in pre-season against a strong West Ham side and to back that up with another three quality goals gives us confidence.
“We want to get our attacking players on the ball higher up the pitch and let them express their quality as we saw at times today.
“I don’t want to be conceding three goals every week so we have to get that balance right but we certainly want to score as many goals as we can.
“That will be important if we are to achieve our goals of getting back to the Premier League. Today is a good start but we know there will be other tests to come.”
Bournemouth were sluggish for much of the first half until Stacey opened the scoring with his first goal for the club, a blistering 25-yard strike which cannoned in off the inside of a post.
The hosts looked comfortable with their lead until Johnson’s speculative 35-yard shot squirmed through the gloves of goalkeeper Mark Travers to make it 1-1 three minutes before half-time.
Lerma restored Bournemouth’s lead with a neat side-foot finish from the edge of the penalty area eight minutes into the second half.
Armstrong drew Tony Mowbray’s men level for a second time with 17 minutes remaining, swivelling away from Lloyd Kelly and rifling a left-foot shot into the bottom corner.
But Danjuma bagged what proved to be the winner in the 84th minute, picking up the ball on the left side of the penalty area before curling an unstoppable right-foot shot into the top corner.
Mowbray said: “I genuinely felt there was only one winner once we got back to 2-2 and that was us!
“It was an intense football match and Bournemouth know they were in a tough game.
“If that is our performance level for the rest of the season, then we should win football matches.
“We should be proud of the way we played, the chances we created and the threat we carried against a team who have Premier League quality as illustrated by their winning goal.”
