Too many of his players have had a stop-start season so far - a factor he feels has hampered progress both in terms of consistency and partnerships on the pitch.

And the last thing he needs after the weekend's morale-boosting victory is to pick up further walking wounded in the days ahead.

"It's all very close in the Premiership at the moment, there's nothing between the teams right now - so my concern now is the players going away to internationals," he said.

"We'll have to see what happens from there, but at least our next game is on a Sunday, which gives us an extra day to recover."

Keane's chief focus of interest will be key striker Kenwyne Jones, newly recovered from injury, yet instantly called up by Trinidad & Tobago for a World Cup qualifier midweek.

Jones has demonstrated in the two games against Rovers just what Sunderland have been missing this season after he was injured playing for T&T in the summer.

And Keane is excited about the potential of a partnership up front which could prove a real handful for Premier League defences in the months ahead, given a chance.

"It's a great bonus to have Kenwyne back because he's just getting back up to speed," Keane enthused.

"I think we saw in the second-half glimpses of the potential of a partnership with him and Djibs, and the good thing is that they've both got a goal in this game.

"We've not seen that partnership because of Kenwyne's injury, but we got an idea of it in this game.

"Unfortunately Kenwyne now has to go away on international duty, so we just hope that he comes back fine from that.

"But that's five goals from Djib and two in two from Kenwyne, and if they can plug into what we are trying to do and get a few more goals along the way then we'll all be happy.

"Five goals from Djib is a good return for us, but there's a lot more to come from this team and a lot more from him and Kenwyne.

"It's all about getting on the pitch together and working hard and getting goals.

"There's a lot of potential and we just have to bring that out.

"But there was good character from my team in this game - no doubt about that."

Keane was delighted the way his players dug in after the break to carve out a win which stopped the rot of four consecutive defeats.

"I thought we were outstanding the second-half," he reflected.

"It was a closely-fought first-half, and we spoke about the need to have a reaction in the second-half after conceding just before the break.

"We got a big boost with the early goal in the second-half, and with the momentum behind us from there, we got our second.

"I would say we just about deserved to win the game. It's all about the players going out there and applying themselves - they did that in the first half, but we just needed a bit more quality to go with the application, and we found that in the second."

Keane also had praise for keeper Marton Fulop, who was put under immense pressure at times, but conceded just one goal.

The Hungarian international is yet to keep a clean sheet in his six appearances so far this season, but performed commendably at Ewood Park.

And Keane said: "Marton did OK - particularly in the second-half.

"Blackburn are a big, strong team, and the quality of their set-pieces is excellent - very hard to defend against - but I thought Marton did very well under the circumstances.

"He's still a young and inexperienced goalkeeper. He's not played that many games for us in the Premiership, but he's getting better and stronger for us all the time.

"His personality is coming through, but any keeper would have struggled with the set-pieces that were coming in on us in the first 10-15 minutes, and I'm sure that was part of their strategy, because we haven't got the biggest team in the world."