Jed Wallace believes Albion delivered a spirited second-half showing at Blackburn but admitted losing two sloppy goals gave the side a "mountain to climb".
The Baggies made a pair of defensive errors in 90 first-half seconds at Ewood Park, with Rovers duo Dilan Markandy and Harry Leonard profiting to give the hosts a 2-0 lead at the break.
Matty Phillips, returning for the first time in seven months, pulled one back for the Baggies early in the second period, however Carlos Corberán’s men were unable to find a leveller and slipped to defeat on the first day.
Wallace accepts mistakes like the ones made on Saturday afternoon can’t happen away from home in the second tier, but also stressed the fact one frustrating result won’t define a 46-game campaign.
Jed said: “I think we had control of the game in the first half until we made a quick couple of errors.
“To let two goals in inside 90 seconds away from home in the Championship is really disappointing from us. It gives us a mountain to climb.
“But saying that, I think we responded really well. In the second half for 25 minutes I think we were really, really on top. We just couldn’t quite manage to get that second goal.
“We know it’s not a time to be too disappointed because we all knew today wasn’t going to define our season, either way.
“We’re obviously very upset with the result but we know that we can bounce back next week at home and hopefully kickstart our season.
“There was a belief in the team after Matty’s goal that we could get back in the game and take a draw – if not more.
“We’ve shown before that we can come from behind and win. It was a great goal from Matty and then we had a couple of scrambles in the mouth of the goal which didn’t go our way. We just couldn’t quite get the ball in.
“They had a couple of chances themselves, so it was a typical wide open Championship game.
“From our point of view though, if you give two goals away inside 90 seconds in a game, you’re always going to give yourself a mountain to climb. We need to learn from today and move on to our next game.
“We knew we can do better. You saw how well we can play at times today, but you can’t give two goals away. The fans stuck by us today. You could see it at the end of the game that they believe in the manager and we’re all very united behind the manager.
“I believe we’ll have a successful season whether we won or lost today, that opinion was never going to change. “We’ll be back in training tomorrow morning and we’ll crack on again.”
