WHEN Gary Bowyer walks into the New York Stadium tonight he will encounter a very different club to the one he left as a 25-year-old.

The Blackburn Rovers boss played for Rotherham United for two seasons between 1995 and 1997.

At the end of the full back’s final campaign at Millmoor, after which he was forced to retire through injury, the Millers were relegated into the old Third Division, the bottom tier of English football.

But fast forward 17 years and resurgent Rotherham have swapped their rickety old ground for the 12,000-capacity shiny New York Stadium which – after Steve Evans led the club to back-to-back promotions – is now home to Championship football.

Bowyer is delighted by his former club’s transformation as he recalls his time there with genuine affection even if he did suffer disappointment before their 1996 Football League Trophy final victory over Shrewsbury Town at Wembley.

His sole aim tonight, however, will be to guide Rovers to a second successive away victory.

The formbook suggests they should achieve one.

The Millers, last season’s League One play-off final winners, have failed to win any of their last six matches in all competitions after they went down 2-0 at Mick McCarthy’s in-form Ipswich Town team on Saturday.

Bowyer, though, believes they are playing better than their results show and he knows, in the form of strikers Luciano Becchio, Jordan Bowery, Alex Revell and Rovers old boy Matt Derbyshire, they certainly have the firepower to pose his side a problem.

But, buoyed by their storming second-half comeback in Saturday’s 2-2 home draw with Watford, he has no doubt they can return home with a win which could push them into the play-off places.

“I went to one game last season (to the New York Stadium) and it’s a fantastic stadium and pitch – it’s a lot, lot different from Millmoor,” said Bowyer, who will be without Alex Baptiste, Paul Robinson, Jason Lowe, David Dunn and Chris Brown tonight.

“They were happy times. We went to Wembley and won a trophy albeit I got dropped on the day – but we won’t talk about that!

“When you’re a kid you want to be a professional footballer and they enabled me to do that and continue that.

“They’ve made massive progress since then and the chairman has got to be praised for that because he’s backed them financially.

“The management team have also done a fantastic job in getting back-to-back promotions and it will be a tough test for us.

“The level of their performances have been good – they certainly have in the games I’ve watched – and you only have to read Mick McCarthy’s comments after their game on Saturday.

“They spent a lot of money in the summer, smashing their transfer records, and they just need time to gel.

“But they’ve not been too far off in the games I’ve seen because they’ve been phenomenal in their efforts.

“So we’ll be fully aware of what we’re up against.”

Bowyer had mixed emotions after the thrilling draw with Watford – pleasure at the way in which Rovers fought back from two goals down but disappointment that their dominance after the restart did not result in three points.

“It was never in doubt at half-time that they would go and do that,” said Bowyer, who admitted impressive on-loan midfielder Ryan Tunnicliffe, who scored the equaliser against the Hornets, is pushing hard for his full debut for the club.

“But the major thing we took from the game was the fact that we didn’t win the game.

“We’ve had the stats back today and they are ever so positive in terms of the number of chances and number of crosses – it was total dominance in the second half.

“So we were just a little bit disappointed that we didn’t win the game.”

Rovers’ failure to beat Watford meant they missed the chance to make it back-to-back wins for the first time season.

And their hopes of a second successive clean sheet were blown away after the Hornets, helped by defensive and goalkeeping mistakes, raced into a two-goal half-time lead.

“We know that we’re going to score goals and we know that we’ve got goals throughout the team,” said Bowyer.

“So now we’ve got to work that little bit harder to keep them out at the other end.”

Rotherham will be boosted by the return of captain Craig Morgan and on-loan Ipswich duo Paul Taylor and Anthony Wordsworth.