Bristol Rovers v Burton Albion Bristol Rovers 3 Brunt 5&#8242: O'Toole 62&#8242: Richard 70&#8242: . Burton Albion 0 FT 90 +5 HT 1-0 Bristol Rovers got back to winning ways with an emphatic victory over promotion hopefuls Burton Albion. Striker Ryan Brunt opened the scoring early on, side-footing home Joe Anyinsah's cross. John-Joe O'Toole doubled their lead from close range after the break and Eliot Richards lashed home a third from Ellis Harrison's cut-back. Third-placed Burton created few chances and had goalkeeper Stuart Tomlinson to thank for keeping the score down. In the space of a few first-half seconds he produced two good saves from defender Tom Parkes. It was Albion's first defeat in eight games, but they remain in the automatic promotion places, while John Ward's Rovers moved up to 17th and are now six points clear of danger. VIEWS FROM THE DRESSING ROOM Bristol Rovers manager John Ward told BBC Radio Bristol: What we've shown today, after a bit of adversity in the last two games, is that we've stayed strong - both mentally and physically. Play mediaI think it's important to show that boys have played well, even in defeats here. Today we've put a top three team to the sword and I've been really pleased with that. It was a very positive approach from everybody. Burton Albion manager Gary Rowett told BBC Radio Derby: I sensed we weren't quite going to have the same tempo, but it's very difficult when you've been losing games. Play mediaIf you change it and you lose 4-0 you feel you've done the wrong thing, so I just thought I'd give them the opportunity to keep going. After 10 or 15 minutes, we could quite conceivably be two or three down, but I thought after that we got a bit of a grip and started to create a few opportunities. Going in at half time 1-0 down I wasn't too upset. I just thought they might sit back and give us a chance to come onto them if we did it properly. But we just didn't show the same intensity levels that we've seen over the last six or seven performances. Lineup, Bookings (2) & Substitutions (6) Bristol Rovers 13 Mildenhall 02 Smith 04 Woodards 06 Parks Booked 14 Brown 29 McChrystal 32 O'Toole 10 Richard 16 Anyinsah (Norburn - 25' ) 17 Harrison (Paterson - 82' ) 26 Brunt (Tounkara - 60' ) Substitutes 20 Gough 19 Virgo 21 McDonald 03 Paterson 15 Norburn 27 Hitchcock 34 Tounkara Burton Albion 13 Tomlinson 20 O'Connor 21 Holness 24 Sharps 08 Weir (Dyer - 72' ) 14 McCrory 19 Maghoma (Phillips - 62' ) 23 Bell Booked 26 MacDonald 29 Kee (Zola - 63' ) 30 Symes Substitutes 16 Lyness 02 Corbett 05 Diamond 17 Phillips 22 Dyer 10 Zola 18 Paterson Ref: Naylor Att: 6,065