BLACKBURN Rovers skipper Grant Hanley is undergoing assessment at Brockhall to determine the extent of the knee injury that has ruled him out of Scotland’s big Euro 2016 qualifier tonight.

It is still too early to say whether Hanley will be fit to face in-form Ipswich Town when Rovers return to Championship action on Saturday.

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But the centre back will certainly not feature for Scotland in their clash with a Poland side that stunned world champions Germany at the weekend.

Instead of flying out to Warsaw with the rest of Gordon Strachan’s squad, Hanley was last night heading back to Rovers’ training base for tests with the club’s medical team.

It is only when those tests have been completed that Gary Bowyer will know whether he has any chance of calling on his captain, who sustained the injury in Scotland’s 1-0 win over Georgia on Saturday, at Portman Road.

But the Rovers boss will be boosted by the return of top-scorer Rudy Gestede for the long trek to Ipswich.

Bowyer said: “The big man (Hanley) doesn’t go down without reason so what we’ll do is get him assessed by our medical team.

“He’s on his way down now, he’ll go straight back to Brockhall, and then we’ll take it from.

“Obviously it was too painful for him to play (against Poland) but hopefully we can diagnose it and take the right course of action.”

Bowyer was without eight senior players for the 0-0 home draw with Huddersfield Town 10 days ago.

But, even if Hanley fails to recover, he is set to take a significantly stronger squad to Suffolk on Saturday.

Gestede sat out the Huddersfield stalemate with a hamstring strain while midfielder Tom Cairney played through the pain of a groin problem that had forced him to miss the defeat at Rotherham United four days earlier.

But the duo key duo were back in full training yesterday – and they could be joined by defender Alex Baptiste by the end of the week.

Bowyer will also be able to call on midfielders Corry Evans and David Dunn – providing the former comes through Northern Ireland’s encounter in Greece tonight unscathed – for the meeting with an Ipswich team unbeaten in seven games.

But while Tommy Spurr is back in full training after nearly two months on the sidelines, the left back will play no part against the Tractor Boys.

Instead he will line up for Rovers U21s’ in their match against Arsenal in Borehamwood on Friday.

“The injuries are certainly improving,” said Bowyer, whose main injury concern, with striker Chris Brown closing in on a return to full training, is midfielder Jason Lowe.

“Rudy has been back in full training and Tom Cairney has been back in full training.

“Alex Baptiste narrowly missed out on full training today so we certainly expect to have him back in full training this week.

“Tommy Spurr has taken another step forward and will feature in the U21s game on Friday and Chris Brown is doing ever so well, so hopefully we’ll get him featured in a game sooner rather than later.”