Football folk often say you make your own luck.

And battling Town deserved to survive the penalty scare an hour into an Ewood Park showdown which while goalless, was absorbing nonetheless.

Town fans might remember Jordan Rhodes missing a couple from the spot when he was wearing blue and white stripes.

But in blue and white halves, the 24-year-old had been unerringly accurate, putting away 10 efforts from 12 yards out.

Rhodes has also had a knack of netting against his old club, with five goals in four meetings, including a hat trick in Blackburn’s 4-2 win at the John Smith’s Stadium in March.

So it looked as if Saturday’s showdown was following a familiar script when Grant Holt was adjudged to have handled as Shane Duffy nodded on a Craig Conway free-kick.

It set up an intriguing contest between old teammates Rhodes and keeper Alex Smithies, both stars of the Wembley shoot-out success against Sheffield United which earned Town their Championship berth back in 2012.

Smithies has a good record of saving from the spot.

He went the right way against Rhodes, but didn’t have a save to make as the ball went wide of the keeper’s right-hand post.

It meant sighs for the Rovers faithful, relief for the 1,593 Town fans in a 14,662 crowd.

It was a good afternoon for Smithies, who later made an outstanding stop to thwart Lee Williamson and used his legs to deny Norwegian Josh King, Rhodes’ frontline partner, to preserve a second clean sheet in six games under Powell.

Credit is also due to the four in front, who worked well individually and as a unit to put the brakes on Blackburn.

Mark Hudson, skipper in the absence of Lee Peltier from the starting side (he came on as a late substitute) and Joel Lynch both made telling blocks.

And Tommy Smith and Jack Robinson, the full-backs in a 4-4-2 formation, worked hard to combat the threat posed by home wide boys Conway and Tom Cairney.

A groin injury for Jonathan Hogg robbed Powell of the midfielder who made telling contributions to the previous wins over Millwall and Wolves .

But it also allowed him to pair on-loan Wigan Athletic man Holt and Nahki Wells up front, with Jacob Butterfield and Conor Coady taking the central berths and Sean Scannell and Harry Bunn the wide places.

Holt had a relatively quiet game, but still played his part with a smile on his face, and that physical presence up front is so welcome.

Wells, left out of the starting XI at Wolves, looked happy to be back and hungry to add to his six-goal tally.

And he had a couple of opportunities to snatch victory for his side.

Nine points out of nine would have been brilliant, but seven is pretty good, and things are looking a lot more rosy than after that 3-0 derby defeat at Leeds United.

Wins tend to breed confidence, and Town seem to have a lot more of that.

And Powell is showing his ability to mix things up, both in terms of team selection and tactics.

There is a lot of hard work ahead, but Town have laid some solid-looking foundations over the past week, and fans can be far more optimistic.