Darragh Lenihan has seen improvement in Rovers this season, enough to suggest the club can match his personal ambitions.

The Rovers captain believes they still have an outside chance of snatching a top six finish, but that will require three wins from their remaining matches, starting with the trip to Millwall.

Lenihan is one of several players who harbour ambitions of making it in the Premier League, with Rovers hoping to match them in the not too distant future, even if that proves beyond them this season.

The Irishman will be a core member of the squad Mowbray will hope to build his side around moving forward, but believes the consistency of results has held them back at times.

“I feel like these past couple of games we’ve improved on how we’re trying to play,” the Republic of Ireland international said

“West Brom will more than likely go up and we matched them so we can take confidence from that.

“It was a good test for us, but throughout this period of games we’ve improved.

“Looking back, Wigan and Barnsley we were disappointed, but we have three games to go and could be looking forward to a play-off semi-final.

“The consistency has let us down throughout the season, but you never know what could happen. We’ll have to wait and see and focus on Millwall and see where we go from there.”

Rovers reached 60 points with their first draw since the re-start, matching the total they achieved across the 2019/20 campaign.

They now have three games to add more to their tally this time around, but the 26-year-old feels Rovers are heading in the right direction. And they continue to look a lot more solid with him in the team, having won just three matches, and kept one clean sheet, in the 20 matches he’s missed since promotion from League One.

“It’s an improvement from there, we finished with 60 points last season, so there’s definitely been improvement,” he added.

“We’re still in with a chance, you never know what might happen in 10 days’ time, we could be sitting here looking forward to a play-off semi-final.

“First of all we have to take each game as it comes, don’t get ahead of ourselves.

“I said a couple of weeks ago, they’re like cup finals for us. We have to win, and if we don’t win all three then it’s looking highly doubtful that we will get in to the play-offs. But we’ll give it our best and see where it takes us.”

For Lenihan, life has become a little bit more hectic in the last fortnight with the birth of his son seeing him miss the Barnsley game last month. He admits his wife has been ‘working wonders’ in the meantime, as the Championship season approaches a near year-long run.

“It’s been a remarkable season, without doubt, but it’s been brilliant to come back,” he added.

“We’re still in with a chance which is the main thing.

“Hopefully we can come away from Millwall, we know it’s going to be a tough game, we’ve been there on many occasions and done well, and get another positive result that can take us in to the final two games with us still having a chance.”

Lenihan received his 12th caution of the season against West Brom having been embroiled in an injury-time tussle with Baggies boss Slaven Bilic, and his assistant, who were both booked as well.

The ball had ran out of play close to Bilic, with the Croatian keen to get the ball back in play, at the same time Lenihan was trying to prevent a quickly taken throw, and what ensued was something of a tug of war.

While serious at the time, Lenihan was able to look back on it with a smile.

“I wasn’t going to let that go, not for a second. It came out of nowhere, I didn’t realise how much of a big deal it was and then I checked my phone after the game and it was nice to have a laugh about it, something quite funny,” he said.