A MEMORIAL STADIUM with a near-capacity crowd will be looking for another glory night on Tuesday when Rovers take on Premiership Fulham in their FA Cup third round replay, with the winners away to Swindon Town or Barnet in the next stage. But first up on Friday evening comes a Coca Cola League One game at Tranmere Rovers, which some would argue is just as, if not more important, bearing in mind the need for points.

Coach Paul Trollope will this week have been putting the cup-tie out of sight while the team concentrate on moving away from any potential relegation dog-fight later in the season. The Birkenhead side have lost only three at Prenton Park to Leeds, Oldham and Swindon and have won their last three at home against Bournemouth, Carlisle and Cheltenham to be in close striking distance of the play-off spots.

Sunday's exciting 2-2 draw at Craven Cottage was no less than Rovers deserved, backed vociferously by almost 7,000 travelling fans who extraordinarily outnumbered home supporters in the 13,634 gate. The Pirates led twice, with Danny Coles providing a dramatic third minute deflected opener from an Aaron Lescott throw-in, touched on by Rickie Lambert, before David Healy levelled five minutes before the break after Lescott's miscued clearance was returned across the box by Moritz Volz as Fulham piled on the pressure. More serious second half defending was weathered before Craig Hinton against the run of play stole in to nod home Chris Lines's free-kick on 64 minutes. Danny Murphy's unstoppable thunderous drive tied the game up with a quarter of an hour to go but both Andy Williams and sub Sean Rigg were denied by Antti Niemi before the end, while Steve Phillips was at his best to deny Alexey Smertin and Seol Ki-Hyeon.

Rovers were without key midfielders skipper Stuart Campbell (suspended) and Craig Disley (ill) but Coles and Lines proved stunning replacements and both the former should be back for the replay.

Trollope said: "I'm very proud of the players. We came up against an established Premier League team and we got a draw and a replay so it's a great result for us. After the final whistle the players weren't jubilant though because on the day maybe we could have won it. We were under a lot of pressure at times but we defended well and Steve Phillips made some good saves. When you have opportunities to take the lead against Premier League teams you do hope to finish it off but in the end on the balance of play overall we're delighted with the draw. Our fans were fantastic, the noise they made inside the ground was magnificent and that's how they've been on quite a few occasions this season. We had some sticky spells but they lifted us and they were absolutely immense."