THE standard has been set. I left the theatre of merchandising on Saturday feeling sick as the proverbial parrot about the result.

Not for the first time this season we dominated large parts of a game but came away empty handed.

Disappointment over the result was, however, tempered by the sheer quality of our performance which was as good as I've seen from a Rovers side.

The challenge now must surely be to try and maintain that sort of standard for the remainder of the season.

I would go so far as to say that IF we could play that well until the end of the season AND accept simple chances when they come along, there would be every chance of remaining undefeated for the rest of the season.

Unfortunately it's a very big "if".

So far this season our performance level seems to have fluctuated to reflect the calibre of the opposition.

We have more than matched almost everyone we've met this year while invariably coming up just short in terms of the result.

However, while it never happens in practice, theoretically we really should have picked something up from every game we've played, Sunderland excepted.

We need to carry "the big game mentality" into all our games, be more ruthless in front of goal and develop the winning habit both when playing well and also not so well as United did on Saturday.

Saturday's man of the match for me was Martin Taylor.

I have long thought that Tiny is an absolutely outstanding talent who basically can be as good as he wants to be.

Saturday did nothing to dispel that opinion. The most prolific striker the Premiership has seen in Ruud Van Nistlerooy spent most of the 90 minutes in Tiny's pocket and was barely allowed a kick where it mattered in open play apart from his extravagant overhead effort.

Nils-Eric Johansson wasn't far behind and kept Solskjaer equally quiet.

He also had a superb game against Barnsley and has done very little wrong whenever picked.

Souey could well have unearthed the new Hansen and Lawrenson.

I for one would be very disappointed if either were dropped to accommodate the return of Berg or Short who themselves have done very little wrong.

In midfield Tugay and Dunn eclipsed 80 million quid's worth of talent in Veron, Beckham and Keane.

Now Dunny is starting to cut out some of the fancy stuff, the partnership between the two is starting to look like the real deal.

United's board in particular must have been looking at Tugay wondering if they could have saved £27m on the lacklustre Veron and possibly got a better player into the bargain.

A few days earlier we had seen our fringe players produce an extremely efficient performance for an hour in despatching Barnsley from the FA Cup before the temptation to try and play exhibition stuff kicked in at 3-0 up.

A much better display than I expected left me idly musing over the unlikely scenario of winning the Cup using our squad players. Stranger things have happened in football.

So to tonight's semi-final second leg. I know in the general scheme of things Premiership consolidation is the be all and end all.

For now however, I am unashamedly tingling with childlike anticipation at the prospect of our first major cup final in my lifetime.

Good luck lads, let's see a good professional job then we can all have a day out to remember in Cardiff!