DARRAGH Lenihan will return to Blackburn Rovers with another international cap under his belt and determined to make his breakthrough into Gary Bowyer’s first team.

The youngster played the full match as Republic of Ireland got their UEFA European U21s European Championship qualifying campaign under way with a 1-0 win over Andorra in Waterford on Thursday.

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It rounded of a month to remember for Lenihan in which he turned 21 and in which he made six straight matchday Rovers squads, including the FA Cup quarter-final 0-0 draw at Liverpool, after being recalled from his successful loan spell with Burton Albion.

The defender or midfielder was not called off the bench by Rovers boss Bowyer and he is still waiting to make his debut for the club.

But Lenihan has no doubt his four months on loan with Burton have made him a better player.

He made 17 appearances for the League Two leaders, firstly under Gary Rowett before his departure to Birmingham City and then under former Leeds United and Chelsea star Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, and he scored the first professional goal of his career in a 1-1 draw at Portsmouth.

“I really enjoyed my time at Burton,” said Lenihan, for whom it was his first taste of senior football after arriving at Rovers in the summer of 2011 from the famous Dublin club Belvedere.

“I’ve learnt so much from Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and David Oldfield and, not only that, playing with experienced players has given me the confidence to push on now, which I needed at this stage in my career.

“A few of the senior lads here had said to me I needed to get that experience and now I understand why.

“When you’re playing for the reserves, there are crowds of up to 200 or 300 people, whereas I played against Portsmouth in front of 14,000 people, so it’s a big step up.

“The fans always want you to do well and luckily we did, we were unbeaten in 13 games, which was a great experience.

“I originally went when Gary Rowett was there. He was there for my first two games and then Jimmy came in.

“He’s a big Chelsea legend but he just settled in straight away, he was very organised, he took care of every detail, in terms of the opposition, so we as a group and as individuals knew exactly what we were going to do.

“Little things that he’s taught me during my loan spell, hopefully I can use in my game now with the first team here.”

Hasselbaink was desperate to keep Lenihan until the end of the season.

But he was called back to Brockhall after injuries took hold of Bowyer’s squad.

“Being back with the first team has been unbelievable,” said Lenihan.

“The Liverpool atmosphere and the performance by the lads was top class. We put in a real shift and, not only that, we could have scored.

“It was a great atmosphere and the 6,000 travelling Blackburn fans were unbelievable. I could hear them more than the Liverpool fans in the Kop. Hopefully we can replicate that at our place.”

But before the big replay Rovers have a Championship clash at Roses rivals Leeds United where Lenihan again hopes to be involved.

He said: “I just have to take every single day as it comes, train as hard as I can and, you never know, come the end of the season, hopefully have a few appearances under my belt.”