MARK Hughes was full of praise after his Rovers side comfortably saw off Birmingham City 3-0 at Ewood Park this evening.

It may have taken the home side 66 minutes to break the deadlock, David Bentley finally firing Rovers in front with a stunning 25 yard drive, but they were full value for the win as Matt Derbyshire and Roque Santa Cruz added to the scoreline with late strikes.

"I thought we were excellent," said Hughes on Radio Rovers after the game. "I thought our general play, the quality of our passing and movement, the way we circulated the ball was first class.

"We could have won even more comfortably but I think it was all to do with our attitude.

"We tried a few things this evening, a little bit different from our normal approach to games and I think it worked. We obviously have won the game and we scored goals, so we're delighted with that."

Rovers dominated throughout, with goalkeepers Kingson and his replacement Doyle kept busy throughout, whilst at the other end Brad Friedel was only called upon on two occasions to keep Birmingham at bay.

The goals took their time to arrive, but it was only a matter of time as Rovers were full value for the win.

"We had to wait a little while for the breakthrough but I always felt it was coming. It was a great strike from David and from that point onwards I always felt we were going to progress through to the next round.

"I thought in the final third we had a lot of creativity, we had a lot of imagination to our play, good angles to our passing and were very dynamic in that final third.

"We created more chances than possibly we have done in recent weeks, so that is encouraging.

"When it is 1-0 you feel more comfortable when you get that second goal and once that game we had even more chances after that, so all-in-all a pleasing night's work."

The draw for the fourth round takes place on Saturday lunchtime.