GARY Bowyer admits Blackburn Rovers need snookers if they are to overcome the odds and pocket the final play-off place.

But the Rovers boss, whose side are 100-1 to finish inside the top six, believes there is still time for one last trick shot to be played.

The Ewood Park outfit head into tomorrow’s final game of the season at home to play-off bound Wigan knowing they have to win – and win big.

Because as well as requiring Reading to lose at home to Burnley and Brighton & Hove Albion to lose away to Nottingham Forest, Rovers also need to overturn a seven-goal swing on Reading.

Asked if he was facing a near impossible task Bowyer said: “Are you saying we need snookers?

“All we can do is concentrate on our game and try and beat a very good team in Wigan.

“Uwe Rosler has done a fantastic job there. To come from where they were and be in with a chance of getting promotion has been a phenomenal effort.

“We’re aware of the challenge that lies ahead but as ever, we’ll concentrate on ourselves.

“I still believe in the last minute of one of the games up and down the country there will be a twist and the pendulum will swing from one club to another.

“We’ve just got to perform to the level that we can.”

Rovers are unbeaten in 11 matches, the longest unbeaten run in the Championship.

But had they been able to convert two of the six draws they had to settle for during their unbeaten run into wins – victories against Brighton and Sheffield Wednesday were carelessly thrown away – they would be going into tomorrow’s game already in sixth place and not effectively out of the running in eighth.

Bowyer added: “If we are that close and we just miss out there will be a ‘what if’ scenario but this time last year mathematically we could have still got relegated going into the Birmingham game.

“So to be mathematically in with a shot of the play-offs is progress.

“My dad reminds me quite regularly that ‘if’ is the biggest word in the dictionary and I understand what he means by that. But clubs up and down the country will be doing the same.

“We’ve laid the foundations and that was our main aim when we came into the club – to try and get rid of the feeling of negativity around the place – and the mentality of negativity from the public and from the press against Blackburn Rovers.

“I think we might have done a little bit of that this season.

“I think one of our biggest gripes is that we have conceded 11 penalties away from home. Now how many of those were penalties?

“But there have been times when we’ve not quite been at it when opportunities have presented themselves and that’s something we’ve got to make sure, if we can’t pull it off on Saturday, that we are better at next season.”