Blackburn Rovers captain Lewis Travis (left) gave the home side the lead in his 200th career appearance
Blackburn Rovers maintained their 100% home Championship record with a 2-0 win against 10-man QPR at Ewood Park.
An uneventful game was turned on its head in first-half stoppage time when Jonathan Varane was sent off for a late challenge on Danny Batth to reduce the visitors to 10.
Rovers captain Lewis Travis - making his 200th career appearance - and Batth scored for the home side in a dominant second-half performance after John Eustace introduced the impressive Todd Cantwell at half-time.
Paul Smyth had a goal back chalked off as Blackburn comfortably saw out the win.
The victory extends Blackburn's unbeaten start to the Championship season while QPR have won just once in the league this term.
Blackburn came into the match on the back of two clean sheets but were almost behind inside the first few minutes, with Koki Saito flashing a shot wide and Smyth narrowly missing after getting on the end of a good cross from the Lommel loanee.
The rest of the first half contained little goalmouth action with the scores level, but that all changed with Varane’s sending off.
The Frenchman overran the ball in the midfield and lunged in and caught Batth on the ankle with his studs, with referee Craig Pawson showing the red card.
Both managers made changes at the break, as Rs boss Marti Cifuentes replaced Karamoko Dembele and Hevertton Santos with Nicolas Madsen and Harrison Ashby, while John Eustance introduced the creativity of Cantwell for Harry Pickering.
It proved decisive as Cantwell and his team-mates exploited the extra space – somehow not scoring from a sequence of four shots in one move from the former Rangers midfielder, Tyrhys Dolan and Yuki Ohashi.
But Travis soon opened the scoring, firing past Paul Nardi via a Steve Cook deflection and Batth then met a Cantwell cross at the back post to double the lead.
Smyth had the ball in the net in a rare journey forward for the visitors but referee Pawson pulled the game back for a foul by the winger on Batth in the build-up.
Rovers now have 15 points from their opening seven games, with QPR on seven.
Blackburn boss John Eustace:
"I thought we were very good. First half, QPR frustrated us, but we played some good progressive football. Had a couple of half chances, kept the ball really well.
"Obviously going down to 10 men, it was more evident that we could play around them and hurt them on the sides, and it was pleasing to get the two goals."
On Lewis Travis: "He's an outstanding leader. He's a leader of men. He's got the respect of the whole building.
"All the fans love him. I couldn't wait to start working with him when he came in."
QPR boss Marti Cifuentes:
"I think it was a decent first half of football, with two teams trying to play positive football.
"I think we started the game actually pretty well against a team that has done really well at home. We didn't concede more than one action, and got a clear one with Smythy [Paul Smyth] at the beginning of the first half.
"It's disappointing because we had some ideas on how to improve in the second half, we were almost ready to go to the changing room, and yes, a red card is definitely a game-changer."
