BENNI McCarthy insists Blackburn Rovers can be proud of their FA Cup semi-final performance.

Rovers bowed out following a dramatic and closely fought tie at Old Trafford, with Chelsea eventually winning 2-1 after extra-time courtesy of Michael Ballack's strike.

But striker McCarthy admits Rovers pushed the Premiership champions all the way, and deserve credit for taking the semi-final to the wire.

"We are unhappy for losing, but we can't be too sad of the way things turned out," said the South African hitman.

"We can be proud of our performance.

"We gave it everything we've got, we worked our socks off.

"The way we performed was super. Hats off to our boys, it was fantastic stuff against the champions.

"We gave them a run for their money, right through to the end, to the last few minutes of extra-time.

"I just thought we gave it our best shot and we really went out there and gave it everything.

"But, at the end of the day, it just wasn't meant to be. But we can go home proud and happy."

Chelsea took a 17th minute lead through Frank Lampard, but Rovers came out fighting after the break and Jason Roberts, a surprise inclusion ahead of Matt Derbyshire, nipped in to equalise on 64 minutes, flicking home Morten Gamst Pedersen's free-kick beyond Blues stopper Petr Cech.

Pedersen missed a golden opportunity to send Blackburn into dreamland just seven minutes from time, sending his back post header wide with the goal at his mercy.

And McCarthy admits those chances cannot afford to be spurned, especially against a Chelsea outfit packed with quality.

He added: "Missing those chances is the difference between winning games against the big guns and missing out.

"If you get chances like that you've got to score and put them in the back of the net.

"The minute it stays level, they always have a chance and you know that if one chance is going to fall for them then they are going to take it and it's goodnight, goodbye and all over, and that's exactly what happened.

"But we are still proud of our performance. Every single one of our players can feel good."

He added: "I really don't think Chelsea expected that tough a game from us.

"I don't even think they were given a tougher game earlier in the week in the Champions League (against Valencia) "But they knew they couldn't under-estimate us, and they will respect us for that performance."

McCarthy added: "I was actually hoping for penalties because I knew we had a great keeper that we could count on.

"And we were positive and confident that if it ended up going to penalties, that we would go through because we've got positive players."