COLIN Hendry has promised Blackburn Rovers fans that the players will do everything they can to make up for the bitter disappointment of Tuesday's FA Cup defeat.

The central defender, who has been skipper in the last two matches, following the decision to leave out Tim Sherwood, acknowledged how the shock cup exit must have hurt everyone.

But he still believes that Rovers can confound the critics and make a real push up the Premiership during the rest of the season - starting against Sheffield Wednesday at Ewood on Saturday.

"I know the fans are very disappointed," he said. "I feel disappointed for them.

"Hopefully, on Saturday, we can try to rectify that.

"They will not be seeing any cups here this season but we have still got the Premiership to play for with 15 games to go. That's 45 points.

"Obviously the majority of people outside of Blackburn have written us off. But that's fine. The people here are the only ones who matter and we will give it a go."

The Premiership is now the only possible route back into Europe for Rovers. They are unbeaten in the last six League games and have only had one defeat in their last 10 - the 5-0 drubbing at Coventry.

But Tuesday's cup crash against Ipswich was a real shock to the system.

English football has only been allocated three UEFA Cup places for next season and one of them will go to the Coca-Cola Cup winners.

Depending on which clubs actually win the two major domestic knockout competitions, Rovers might have to finish as high as third to snatch a European spot.

Among all the disappointment of Tuesday's FA Cup defeat, a little bit of Rovers history was made.

When Billy McKinlay went on as a 73rd minute substitute for Mike Newell, it meant that for the first time ever the team on the field consisted of 11 senior internationals!

That applied until Tim Sherwood replaced David Batty 17 minutes into extra time and I believe it is unique in the club's history to have fielded a full side of international players.

In fact, a record had almost certainly been created against QPR last Saturday, before being broken against Ipswich. For Rovers fielded a side of 10 full internationals at Loftus Road from start to finish.

The unique Ewood Tuesday team consisted of four English internationals (Flowers, Batty, Ripley and Shearer), three from Scotland (Hendry, Gallacher and McKinlay), two Norwegians (Berg and Bohinen), plus lone representatives from the Republic of Ireland (Kenna) and Wales (Coleman).

Rovers Reserves visit Nottingham Forest at the City Ground tonight (7pm) for a Pontin's League First Division fixture put back 24 hours.

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