Paul Downing feels Rovers can follow the example of those before and make the step up from League One to the Championship.

All three sides promoted from League One in 2016/17 stayed in the second tier while two of them, Millwall and Sheffield United, finished in the top 10 and threatened the play-offs.

And while Downing knows the challenge that Rovers face, he believes there is enough quality within the Rovers dressing room to ensure they more than hold their own next term.

He said: “It’s going to be a big summer and then testing ourselves in the league above won’t be easy.

“There’s a lot of hard work ahead for myself to hopefully stay in and around the squad.

“This club doesn’t belong in League One and it’s important that we bounced back and now we get in to the Championship among some big teams with big budgets, as the manager has spoken about, but we’ve seen this year with the teams that got promoted last year anything is possible, anyone can beat anyone and it’s important to have another good season.”

Downing signed a permanent deal with Rovers in January after impressing during the first half of the season on loan from MK Dons.

He played 28 times in the league and lost just twice when deputising for the injured Darragh Lenihan.

Rovers embarked on two long unbeaten runs which were the catalyst for promotion, but Downing says there wasn’t one specific moment he can pinpoint which turned their season around after they suffered four defeats in the opening two months of the season.

He said: “I felt that we were scoring so freely and going away and winning at difficult places.

“I’ve been in League One four or five years and know how difficult it is to go away from home and get points.

“But the way we responded after the Plymouth defeat, to go on another run and doing it at such a crucial stage of the season when the pressure is really on and the three points are massive, as a group of players we responded.

“We won a lot of games, important points, to have enough over the 46 games. I think across the season us and Wigan have been the two strongest sides.”

It wasn’t until Tony Mowbray’s side reached the 93 point mark, three short of their eventual total, that Rovers managed to secure automatic promotion.

They missed out on the title to Wigan Athletic, who claimed 98 points.

But avoiding the play-offs, and winning promotion at the first attempt, was the main thing for Downing.

He added: “It was important to bounce back straight away.

“We know the amount of points we got that we’d normally have been promoted much earlier than we were.

“It’s always difficult. There are some big clubs that have been around this league for a number of years so to bounce back at the first attempt was a great achievement for everyone involved.”