Fly Me To The Moon column: It is obvious Middlesbrough have made real progress since their last televised game

What an impressive performance it was by Boro at Blackburn last night.

All the build up talk was about Blackburn's attacking prowess pitted against Boro's defence. It was billed as Tony Mowbray the purist versus war horse Neil Warnock. In the event that totally flipped around and the game of attack and defence was massively weighted in our favour.

It was frustrating that our old failings in front of goal prevented us coming away with the victory our performance so richly deserved. Yet, you have to say, didn't we play well.

Looking at the stats, we had 51 per cent of possession and used it wisely to carve out some 20 shots on goal. Mowbray said afterwards that we had stopped them playing and flowing. I am in no way neutral but it looked to me as if it was Blackburn that were doing the blocking.

We played some lovely football before time and time again home players stemmed the red tide with last-ditch tackles or blocks. They were often at some cost to Mowbray's team. They conceded 19 fouls and all the defence were cautioned.

Warnock will no doubt be looking closely at how Boro couldn't capitalise on any of those free-kicks or the 12 corners. Credit where credit is due, well done to Aynsley Pears for organising his new teammates and proving himself a really formidable last line of defence.

It was great to see Boro play on the big box again. It was obvious that real progress has been made since the last televised game, when we were narrowly defeated in the season opener at Watford. Yes, it was good last night to swap a flickering, buffering laptop for a big screen, for those lucky enough to be satellite subscribers. Although not quite like being there, obviously.

This week would have been one of the favourites for away Tees trippers. The road over the Pennines is littered with potential pub stop offs. Blackburn often offer excellent incentives to away fans, particularly low ticket offers for young supporters. The only negative can be the icy blast, straight out of the Arctic that wind-blasts the cliff like Darwen End.

This week Wimbledon fans have finally returned home to Plough Lane after 30 years in the wilderness. Or not quite, they have to remain patient before actually taking their seats again in a brand new stadium in their old address.

Boro fans would have been experiencing another new London ground, Brentford's Community Stadium this weekend. It would have been interesting to see how it matches up to the fan friendly atmosphere of Griffin Park. There will obviously be better sight-lines but Boro fans have enjoyed the hospitality and not just in the famous four corner pubs at Griffin Park. You suspect Bees fans will take this with them when they finally get to occupy their new ground.

So, fifth in the league and playing good football, plenty of reasons to be cheerful then. Now for the biggest challenge so far away at free-scoring Brentford. Can we pass the test? Come On Boro.

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