Tony Mowbray admits his fondness of the FA Cup means he will pick a strong side for tomorrow's tie at Newcastle.

Rovers travel to the Premier League side buoyed by a New Year's Day win over West Brom with Mowbray keen to see how his side fare against the Magpies.

Brought up with the FA Cup being the biggest day in the football calendar, the 55-year-old recalls with great fondness of watching matches with his dad.

He said: “It means a lot. People of a certain era where the FA Cup was the biggest cup competition.

“In my family growing up I remember my dad getting all his mates round, my mum would have made a big buffet, it was the highlight of the football season.

“Maybe it’s a generational thing for a guy in his mid-50s, the FA Cup is such a big event. It’s obviously deteriorated over the years, I think back to Manchester United not even entering, but for me, I always pick teams that can progress in the FA Cup.

“Not that I sit here believing that Blackburn Rovers will be in the FA Cup final in May, but we will give it a go. It’s great we have a Premier League side, a test for the players as to where they are, their abilities, in front of what hopefully will be a full crowd.”

Rovers could still make changes for their fifth game in 21 days, their previous four against the top four sides in the Championship.

But Mowbray said: “It’s important that we try and compete in the FA Cup. It will be difficult playing a Premier League team.

“We’re coming off the back of a run of playing all four of the top teams in the Championship, it’s been a tough run for us and although we have given a good account of ourselves, we have come out on the wrong side of the results.

“We bounced back with a win over West Bromwich Albion, fresh out of the Premier League, so we should all look forward to it.”

Newcastle, beaten by Manchester United on Wednesday night, are 15th in the Premier League, three points above the dropzone.

They haven't progressed beyond round four since 2006, with Rafa Benitez expected to make changes.

“We will prepare our team. I have no idea what Rafa sees of the FA Cup,” Mowbray said.

“What I would think is that if you are a Premier League team wouldn’t you keep going until you bumped in to a Liverpool, or a Manchester City or a Tottenham?

“The opportunity is there to keep progressing if you keep getting drawn against lower league clubs.

“I wouldn’t sit here and try and predict their team, other than I know they have just had a tough game, but he (Benitez) will want to progress and not get beaten by a Championship side, I’m sure of that.”

“We will go and prepare our team to play our way and expect them to pick as strong a team as possible.”