Rovers return to the scene of their relegation on the final day of the 2016/17 this afternoon.

Then, a 3-1 win at Brentford wasn’t enough to keep them in the Championship as the club dropped in to the third tier for the first time in 37 years.

Some 20 months on, Rovers are eighth in the second tier table, three points off the top six and enjoying their best run of form in the top two divisions for 11 years.

Indeed, a win at Griffin Park today would move Rovers to 46 points from 30 games, their highest at this stage in any of their Championship campaigns since relegation from the Premier League in 2012.

Evans, Rovers’ longest serving player, signed in 2013 and was part of the side that recorded an eighth place finish that season, clocking up 70 points to fall two shy of the play-offs.

That remains Rovers’ best finish since relegation, but the 28-year-old feels this squad has the potential to outdo the achievements of Gary Bowyer’s 2014 vintage.

“This squad is right up there. The first couple of seasons I was here we had a really good team. A lot of those players have gone on to play in the Premier League,” the 28-year-old said.

“But I think the squad we’ve got now is equally as good and hopefully can go one stage further and get in to the play-offs.

“We want to be realistic about our chance of getting in the play-offs. We knew we had to go on a run and we’ve managed to do that. The challenge is to keep it going.”

Questions over Rovers identity and the direction the club was going in after the relegation in May 2017 have quickly been answered under the guidance of Tony Mowbray.

Seven of the team that started that day remain first team regulars and although Evans missed the final five months of the relegation season through injury, he gave an insight into the feeling in the dressing room at that time.

He said: “I wasn’t part of the squad that day, I was injured. We went there needing a miracle really and we managed to win that day but it wasn’t to be.

“It was a difficult time to be around the club, everyone was bitterly disappointed with the relegation and it took a while to get our heads around it that summer.

“The manager got us all back on track, brought in some new players to freshen things up and we managed to get promotion from League One at the first time of asking.

“We’ve stepped on again this year and that was our aim.”

Rovers made just one January signing, Harry Chapman returning to the club. The winger is another player under the age of 23 to be brought in by Mowbray.

Evans added: “The manager is trying to sign players that can take the club forward. We have a lot of young players, who are hungry and with potential to improve.

“We’ve seen the manager’s record at improving young players is phenomenal and lots of players that have worked under him have gone on to better things and that’s what he’s trying to bring here and move the club forward.”

Evans excelled in last week’s win over Hull and says the challenge for Rovers now is to replicate that performance on a regular basis.

“That’s the standard we’ve set and moving forward that’s the levels we need to be hitting,” he added.

“It will be difficult to do that, Brentford will be a tough test.

“But we’ve prepared our tactics and the manager will set us up in a way to try and get another win.”