CORRY Evans is determined to return to Blackburn Rovers having helped his country take a massive step closer to an historic first appearance at a European Championship.

While the majority of his Rovers team-mates are enjoying a break from the grind the midfielder has joined up with the Northern Ireland squad ahead of their crucial qualifier against Romania on Friday.

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Michael O’Neill’s men sit top of Group F going into the big Bucharest clash after a famous 2-0 victory in Greece last month maintained their 100 winning per cent start to the campaign.

A fourth straight in success would leave Northern Ireland, who have never before qualified for a Euros, five points clear at the summit and a way further down the road to the finals in France in 2016.

Belfast-born Evans knows the importance of the match.

But the 24-year-old, who is set to win his 27th cap against Romania, will refuse to get carried away even if Northern Ireland do continue their winning ways.

“I’m really looking forward to it,” said Evans.

“I’m fully focused on Romania and hopefully we can get a decent result to add to the nine points that we’ve got already.

“The confidence is unbelievably high at the minute – three wins on the bounce, Northern Ireland has never done that before.

“But we know that we’ve got a tough game coming up and we haven’t finished the job yet.

“There will be still six games to go after this one so there’s a lot of football still to be played and a lot of points still to be played for.

“We’ve just got to keep ourselves focused, take it one game at a time and, who knows, come the end of the campaign, we could qualify for the Euros.”

Evans takes an equally pragmatic approach when it comes to Rovers’ burgeoning promotion prospects.

Gary Bowyer’s side sit just one point outside of the play-offs and five from top spot after embarking on a seven-match unbeaten run before the final international break of the year.

But Evans, who knows exactly what it takes to win promotion from the Championship after helping Hull City finish second in 2012-13 before making the move to Ewood Park, believes there is no point looking further ahead than the visit of Roses rivals Leeds United on Saturday week.

“It is all about mentality and turning up every week,” he said.

“It is a grind, especially when it is two games in a week, Saturday, Tuesday and another one on Saturday again, it can be quite tough.

“It is about recovery, getting the right rest and preparation. If you do all those things then your ability will come out and whoever does that right will be successful.”

Bar from a brief few hours after the win over Reading at the start of this month Rovers are yet to break into the top six.

Evans said: “We made a slow start, a bit inconsistent, but we’ve picked up and have been on a seven-game unbeaten run, although four of them have been draws, and I’m sure a couple of them we would have liked to have turned into wins.

“But we are steadily progressing and hopefully come Christmas we can be up there and really push on toward the end of the season.”