Graham Westley has labelled Saturday’s FA Cup third round tie away to Championship side Doncaster Rovers as essential to his club.

With Boro looking to offload players in order to get back within budget, the financial rewards of a successful cup run are crucial at The Lamex Stadium.

Westley told The Comet this afternoon [Thursday]: “It’s a massive prize, it’s not going to be essential to our opponents, albeit I’m sure they want to win, but it is essential to us so we go into the game with a real strong desire to win it.

“It won’t be easy, going away to a Championship is never going to be an easy proposition, we know just how hard we had to work to beat Reading a couple of years ago.

“It was a brilliant performance from us that day, we got everything spot on, and I’m sure we’re going to have to get a lot spot on at the weekend to come away with the victory.”

Stevenage saw their Sky Bet League 1 New Year’s Day encounter with Gillingham postponed at the Lamex Stadium, Westley instead took the opportunity to watch Doncaster in action at QPR.

“When you watch a side in the here and now you can know their players, you can watch video footage, but there’s nothing like the real thing so for sure to get a chance to watch them first hand immediately before we play them was a massive bonus,” he added.

Stevenage and Doncaster faced each other in League 1 last season with the sides drawing 1-1 at the Keepmoat Stadium and Rovers winning 2-1 in Hertfordshire.

Doncaster ran out as title winners to secure promotion to the Championship.