Blackburn Rovers eager for success in FA Cup says Thomas | OneFootball

Blackburn Rovers forward Lauren Thomas says that the club are keen to enjoy a run in this season’s Adobe Women’s FA Cup.

Rovers begin their participation in this season’s competition with a third round tie at neighbours Darwen on Sunday afternoon.

A little over four miles separate the two towns and Rovers forward Thomas is looking forward to playing in front of a packed out crowd against an opponent that she hasn’t faced competitively before.

“It’s exciting,” Thomas said when speaking to WSL Full-Time. “It’s a local derby so hopefully, we will get lots of fans there to support both teams. I’m hoping it’ll be a good crowd.

“We’ve not seen them play that much so it’ll be exciting to face someone new and hopefully, we can get the win.”

Darwen play their football in the sixth tier, four levels below opponents Blackburn Rovers while they are the lowest-ranked side left in the competition. Rovers don’t know an awful lot about their opponents but Thomas insists that the team have to focus on their own game.

She said “We’ve seen some clips of them and I’m sure we will go over them before Sunday. Ultimately, we’ve got to focus on ourselves and what we want to do. It is important that we stick to what we’ve been working on in the league and focus on putting that into practice against them.”

One club from the Barclays Women’s Championship got as far as the quarter-final stage in last season’s Adobe Women’s FA Cup. Thomas said that Rovers want to be that second tier team that goes on a run in the competition this year.

“You always get that team that keep winning and go really far in the competition,” she said. “We have to have that belief in the group that we can go far ourselves. As players and as a club, we want to get through and go on a cup run.”

Blackburn Rovers’ Adobe Women’s FA Cup third round tie at Darwen kicks-off at 2pm on Sunday afternoon.