Tony Mowbray feels this weekend’s trip to Brentford will be an acid test of Rovers’ play-off credentials having seen their ‘bubble burst’ at Griffin Park 12 months ago.

Rovers were 2-0 up inside 12 minutes in the same fixture last January, after four consecutive wins, only to come out on the end of a 5-2 hiding, the start of a slide down the table that saw them take just four points from their subsequent 12 matches.

Rovers again make the trip south with some momentum after back-to-back wins over Hull and Charlton has moved them in to play-off contention.

Mowbray’s side reached the 50-point marker with the victory at The Valley a figure they didn’t hit until April last season, and the manager hopes that shows signs of progress.

“I hope so. I said from the start we want to try and improve,” Mowbray told the Lancashire Telegraph.

“It’s not easy in this league to catapult yourself 20 points better than you were last year, because you can’t change the team fast enough really.

“You try and change the mentality of some of the players, try and add quality as you go along, and they’re doing okay.

“We’ve still got a long way to go, some tough games coming up.

“I think going away to Brentford last year really put a pin our bubble. They scored five against us having been 2-0 up.

“They can do that to you so it’s a great challenge for us but going in to it on the back of a couple of wins is better than having a bit of fear on selection.

“We should go to Brentford and see how we get on against a very, very good team and try and enjoy the run we’re on, play with some confidence and see how many points we accrue.”

Mowbray will hope to have more decisions to make for the trip to Brentford as he hopes to have Sam Gallagher, Joe Rankin-Costello and Joe Rothwell all back available from injury.

All three are making progress, with a decision on their involvement at Brentford set to come later in the week.

Derrick Williams added to the casualty list, and looks further behind the trio, while young defenders Tyler Magloire and Sam Barnes are also out which meant Hayden Carter was part of a matchday squad for the first time last weekend.

Williams missed out with a calf problem, with Charlie Mulgrew given minutes for the Under-23s in their 2-2 draw with Southampton last Friday.

The 33-year-old, who cut short his loan spell at Wigan to return to Rovers last month, hasn’t played since picking up an injury for the Latics in December.

He has been training with the first-team squad at Rovers in recent weeks and will hope 90 minutes for Billy Barr’s side will be enough to put him in contention to make the travelling party this weekend.