I might just go home and freeze Teletext

“We dealt time and again with the long punt forward in the first period, but our mentality seemed to change for one reason or another after the break and we've come away with nothing from a game we've competed superbly in for sixty odd minutes.

“As a manager you can only prepare the team for matches; once they step over that white line it becomes out of your control and when you make a mistake like we did, you get punished.”

Having conceded that first goal from Steve Jones it was always going to be an uphill battle for Rangers and Waddock added: “We had to change everything around after the first goal, but we should never have got ourselves into that situation in the first place. We bossed the first half, creating chance after chance, yet we've come away with nothing and that is deeply disappointing.”

For Steve Cotterill, who was celebrating his first ever opening day win as a league manager, it was just the sort of start he was looking for. “I'm very pleased,” he said, “The first game of the season is always an awkward one because you don't get to see other teams in pre-season. That makes it a lottery, but you can't do too much more than win your first game. That's good enough and being top of the league is even better. I think I might just go home and freeze Teletext.”

Cotterill was understanding of QPR's plan to try and thwart the Clarets and said: “They came here with a game plan of not losing. I'm not knocking that at all because we've done it for two years. They made it very difficult for us and what happens is the passing then starts to go astray.

“It's very important that you get a bit of movement and in the second half I thought it worked well. We just needed the goal and thankfully it came. The second one was fantastic, but for the first goal we were looking for the opportunity but it could so easily have been smothered by the keeper. But praise to Andy Gray and Kyle Lafferty who went looking for it, and it was a nice side foot finish by Steve Jones.”

Steve ended with a comment about the supporters. “The people of Burnley live and die for their football club,” he said. “And what we have hopefully done is put a few smiles on faces. There will probably be a bit more productivity for the bosses on Monday morning too.”