Mowbray demands a reaction at Doncaster

The 3-0 defeat on the South coast means Boro have won only one of their last seven games and have subsequently dropped to fourth in the Championship table.

Five straight wins away from home at the beginning of the season helped propel Mowbray's men into the automatic promotion places, but defeats in their last two games away from the Riverside have brought the Teessiders back down to earth.

However, with a trip to the Keepmoat Stadium to face second-bottom Doncaster tonight followed by the visit of Watford on Saturday, Mowbray insists his players are eager to get back to winning ways.

"Any team that gets defeated, you look for a reaction from and we showed that after losing at Forest by winning the next game," Mowbray said.

"Let's hope we can follow that pattern and feel better about ourselves going into the international break.

"I know enough about these players, I've had them for a year now. We've had enough defeats and enough victories along the year. It won't be through lack of desire, they'll be very pumped up for it on Tuesday.

"We have an opportunity this week to pick up six points. If we can beat Doncaster and Watford we'll be sitting pretty healthy again and everything will be rosy. If we don't beat either of those teams there's every chance we'll be mid-table.

"I watched the game back on Sunday. We had enough of the ball and yet didn't manage to hurt them hardly. We have to try and get back to what we were doing so effectively.

"We have to grind out some results, which we have done already this season and we'll try to get back to that at Doncaster.

"I think we're as good as most teams in the league. It's very tight and we're more than a match for most, if not all the teams in this league.

"We've been found wanting in our last two away games but let's just wait and see how the season unfolds."

With Doncaster struggling to win on home soil - they've won only once at the Keepmoat this season - Boro will fancy their chances if they can recapture their impressive away form.

But having lost at Nottingham Forest last month, who were also in the relegation zone, Mowbray has warned his players tonight's game won't be a foregone conclusion.

He said: "We went to Forest and they were second bottom at the time and we lost 2-0.

"Doncaster have signed El-Hadji Diouf, Chimbonda's there, Ilunga from West Ham is too. They've got some very good players.

"I've seen their game from the weekend and they will probably think they should have won it. It will be tough. We've been hard to play against on the road this season so we'll hope for the same again.

"We won our first six on the road but have lost our last two so we have to get back to winning games quickly."

In the aftermath of Saturday's defeat, Mowbray suggested the difference between the two teams was a prolific striker in the mould of Rickie Lambert.

After scoring five in seven at the start of the campaign, Marvin Emnes has struggled to maintain that form of late, while Scott McDonald is still searching for his first goal of the season.

With Alex Nimely and Bart Ogbeche pushing for starting places, Mowbray admits the time will come when has to make changes if his first-choice strikers don't start firing.

He said: "Marvin has scored a lot of goals early season, but he's only scored one in eight now so it's not just Scott having a baron time in front of goal.

"I think you can chop and change every time someone has a bad day or you show faith and try and keep them going.

"There will come a cut off point where there's someone on the bench who needs a chance, but we haven't got lots of option to change things.

"We just have to keep them both going. Sometimes changing the scenario might kick-start things for them and maybe that means bringing someone off the bench.

"I think Scott's been part of the reason why we've been so good defensively this season. I got no qualms with Scott's work-rate but we want to get to a point when he works hard and scores goals."