Ryan Green admitted that he didn't expect to even make the substitutes bench against Luton Town, never mind play from the start.

The Rovers right-back received a call on Friday evening from first team coach Paul Trollope asking if he felt fit enough to feature at Kenilworth Road.

Aaron Lescott and David Pipe were both ruled out late in the day by injury and illness respectively, and Ryan said he was only too happy to accept the challenge.

"I had a phone call from Trolls on the Friday night saying there was a bit of a problem," Ryan told bristolrovers.co.uk, "Aaron Lescott was injured and David Pipe had gone down ill, so he asked if I could do a job and I thought I did ok.

"I'd spent the whole week at Lilleshall doing rehabilitation work and I hadn't trained with the first team or done any practice with the balls at all. It was a massive shock to get a call like that, but I felt I did ok out there.

"Before the game Trolls just said that there was no pressure on me, just to try my best and if I needed to come off just to put my hand up.

"I did that in the 70th minute, although I was surprised I made it that long to be honest. But my calves and hamstrings were cramping up so I knew it was time to come off."

Ryan picked up an Achilles injury in pre-season and has been out for slightly longer than he'd have liked.

"It's been frustrating for me being out so long, but the team's been doing well and I'm glad to be a part of it again," he said, "The first injection I had didn't work but the second one seems to have got the job done, so now I'm feeling a lot better.

"I've been doing a lot of bike work and running work over the last couple of weeks, but after playing against Luton obviously I now want to play a part against Leeds as well."

Whether or not Ryan is involved on Friday night remains to be seen, but he says the whole club can take confidence from the Kenilworth Road triumph.

"Luton are one of the favourites to go up this year, so I think that says a lot about the result," he said, "Apparently some people were saying playing Luton was our cup final, although I thought we more than matched them to be honest and deserved the win.

"We've proved we can compete with the big teams in this division, and I think there's no reason why that can't continue. If we can keep playing as we are then it's going to be an exciting year and hopefully we can get in the play-offs again."