Tony Mowbray says Rovers’ league position heading in to the final weeks of the season will dictate the possibility of first team opportunities for some of the club’s rising prospects.

Mowbray watched the Rovers youngsters chalk up a seventh win in 10 games as they beat Accrington Stanley on penalties in the Lancashire Senior Cup semi-final.

The boss again spoke highly of the club’s fledgling prospects and admitted there could be opportunities at first team level before the season is out.

That could well come down to the position Mowbray’s side find themselves heading in to the final third of the campaign, with their current tally of 43 points seeing them 13th ahead of tomorrow’s trip to Reading.

Mowbray has handed debuts to eight Academy graduates during his near two-year tenure, with a number of Damien Johnson’s side having trained with the first team in recent weeks.

“Hopefully over the next month or so we will win enough games to take us over the 50 points mark and then let’s see what the league is doing, how close to the top six we are and see if we are going to push, or give some of the Under-23s a chance, and an opportunity and will they be good enough,” said Mowbray.

“If we get to a position where, with half a dozen games left, we feel that we are too far away from the top six, yet we’ve surpassed 50-odd points, who’s to say we don’t give one or two of these young players a game and see whether they are first team players or not quite ready yet.”

Attacker Dan Butterworth, scorer against a strong Stanley team on Monday, has been on the bench for the first team this term, and featured in the Carabao Cup earlier this season.

Mowbray, who has seen Lewis Travis and Joe Nuttall impact his side in 2019, believes a number of Johnson’s squad have the potential to make their mark in the senior side.

Rovers head to Reading in mid-table, but the boss is refusing to give up on the prospect of reaching the top six.

But on the talent bubbling underneath, he said: “There are one or two who can really change the dimensions of our team.

“Let’s see how the season rolls, and if that scenario comes along, and I sit here hoping that it doesn’t because if we win game after game after game then we will be on the cusp of it.

“Let’s keep rolling, that’s one for later in the season to see whether lads get an opportunity to see whether they can make a name for themselves and put them in the frame for the start pre-season.

“It might save the club a few quid if we feel there’s a player that is going to be a first team squad player next year and we don’t have to go out and spend.”

When pressed for names however, Mowbray was coy.

“No, because I give names then their agents start coming in for new contracts and upping the price, that’s the world we live in,” he said.