Paul Trollope admits that winning against Oldham Athletic today was "crucial".

The first team coach watched his players collect their first three-point haul of the season at Boundary Park to elevate the club into ninth place in the League One table.

A loss would have left the Pirates languishing just above the relegation zone, and Paul knows that winning today was the difference between a good start and a poor start.

"We needed to win today," Paul told bristolrovers.co.uk, "We felt we were a bit unlucky to only get points out of the first two games, and we knew that if we had lost today then it would not have been a good start to the season.

"Our performances have been good, but today we needed to win. It was a classic away performance, but we're glad to be going back down the road with three points.

"It was a crucial match, five points from nine is a good start, but two from nine isn't. It could have gone either way today, and having had reports on Oldham we knew they were going to cause us problems.

"We were solid at times, they had a lot of possession, and there were spells when we had to keep our shape and be patient. We did that and we also started to produce attacks that hurt them.

"We'd worked going into the game on our counter-attacking, and it was nice to see our goal came from that. We had a bit of luck when their lad missed an open goal, but overall we're very pleased with what we saw."

The only goal of the game came from the head of Joe Jacobson, who Paul was full of praise for at the end of the match.

"Joe gives us a nice balance to the side, and he's come back from some international football in the week and played very well today," he said, "We know with him and David Pipe in the side we're going to get a lot of crosses, and we're starting to get more people in the box to benefit from that.

"He's got a lot of quality about him and he's growing all the time, and we're pleased with the contribution he makes."

Rovers now turn to West Ham United on Tuesday before preparing for the visiting of Nottingham Forest on Saturday.

"We've got some tough games coming up, and we'll be preparing for them and taking them one at a time," said Paul, "For Bristol Rovers to be playing West Ham in the cup and Nottingham Forest in the league both at home makes for a great week for the football club.

"West Ham is a game where the pressure is on them, it's live on Sky, and they'll come here as a Premier League team looking to win the match.

"We'll give them a huge amount of respect because we know they are a real force and will provide a very tough challenge for us. But we won't fear them, they're only footballers at the end of the day, and if we produce a good performance then you never know."