Chris Lines is hoping his last-gasp weekend winner for Bristol Rovers will be the morale-booster that helps to get their season back on track.

The midfielder scrambled home the decisive goal from a stoppage-time corner in the 3-2 victory over Carlisle to seal three points for the Pirates after six consecutive defeats.

"Winning any game in the last minute is always a boost for morale," said Lines.

"You go away with a real buzz knowing you've got the goal and, more importantly, three points. Now we have to make it two in a row against Gillingham on Saturday."

The goal was Lines' fourth of the season and second in his last three outings – although he admits he didn't know too much about it at the time.

"Stuart Campbell's corner kick was swirling in the wind and their goalkeeper shouted for my marker to leave the ball – but then he missed it and I think it hit me on the chest and went in," said Lines.

"I wasn't sure at first whether it was in or not, but then I looked again and saw that it was over the line."

Manager Paul Trollope has given Lines a licence to attack from midfield, and the Bristolian is hoping to keep adding to his tally.

"I'm really enjoying it," he said. "I've started to get forward a lot more, which Trolls has encouraged me to do.

"He wants me to run with the ball at defenders and sometimes at this level defenders back off when you do that because they are not expecting it.

"It's more usual for the wingers to do it, but I'm trying to do it from the middle."

Rovers has also netted a stoppage-time winner in their previous victory at Southampton in September before the losing run which was threatening to derail their campaign.

"There had been a long time between those two wins and we had a bad run, although we had played some of top sides in our league in that time," said Lines. "Maybe a bit of complacency had crept in and we thought that we were a bit better than we are.

"But even though we didn't play as well as we can on Saturday and let in a couple of sloppy goals, we dug in and got the win we needed – and that was the important thing.

"We've been letting in a few goals in recent games and it was disappointing to concede two more against Carlisle, although at least this time we got more at the other end.

"But there are still things to work on defensively, because if we'd been playing a team from the top six, they might have taken a couple of the chances that Carlisle had. We were lucky they didn't go in."