For perhaps the first time this decade Rovers go into Easter with nothing but the actual games at stake.

Obviously results are still paramount and the chance to throw a spanner in the promotion race - and also to bow out with an impressive home win - means there is plenty to play for.

Yet the opportunity to give some young players game-time is what most want and that is what Tony Mowbray has intimated.

The plus side is that these lads will be under no real pressure.

It is a relatively gentle easing into the first-team fray.

The only problem with that is that very ‘plus’; when the pressure is on their ‘experience’ counts for little.

For example, Lewis Travis has gone through a little turmoil and emerged the other end with broader shoulders and a spoonful more ‘nous’. 

As I mentioned at the time, Tyler Magloire’s experience with Steven Fletcher in the defeat at Sheffield Wednesday will have been more educating than his 90 minutes swatting away Wigan’s pesky midges.

Some older fans will recall Graham Fenton who was thrown in at the end of the 1995/1996 season, famously derailing his boyhood heroes Newcastle’s title bid with two late goals and a desire lacking in other players that night.

He ended the season with five goals in five games, mainly from the subs bench.

The next season, in the absence of Alan Shearer and Mike Newell, he started a third of the games and finally scored his first goal in the last game of a wretched season for Rovers.

Once the pressure was on he was found wanting.

Although to some extent this season has been a steep learning curve for some players (David Raya and Ryan Nyambe, to name but two) if they take the lessons and use them correctly they will progress.

This is still a young side with a couple of experienced chaps to guide them.

Some of the middling lads will surely be moved on during the summer and more experience sought.

We have the raw materials. Rovers just need some wise, hungry senior pros to help mould them.

Danny Murphy’s-in-waiting need not apply.