Blackburn's second string beat Grimsby 4-1 in the Carling Cup on Wednesday but Paul Ince has no intention of promoting them to his first team.Rovers, showing eight changes from the side that drew 1-1 against Hull last weekend, overcame the shock of going a goal down inside seven minutes to exert their Premier League class and see off the League Two outfit to book their place in round three.

Tom Newey's curling free-kick initially threatened to cause a shock before Carlos Villanueva found an equaliser within 10 minutes that his lively debut deserved, and further goals from Matt Derbyshire, who scored twice, and Brett Emerton saw Blackburn home as 4-1 winners.

Only Ryan Nelsen, Morten Gamst Pedersen and Aaron Mokoena remained from Blackburn's recognised first-choice line-up, but Ince was quick to assure his rested stars that they would regain their spots for the clash against the Hammers.

When asked if he had been given something to think about, Ince replied: "Not at all, to be fair.

"When you win at Everton and draw at home to pick up four points, you don't change your side around a bit.

"But there are certainly one or two that have shown if it's not going well on Saturday, which I hope is not the case, then I can put them on and they could change the game."

Despite going behind early on, Rovers' passage into the next round was never in doubt and, but for a marvellous goalkeeping performance from Grimsby stopper Phil Barnes, it could have been a rout.

"We started off very slow, but it was always a game that could potentially have been a banana skin," added Ince.

"After 20 minutes we looked out of sorts, until Carlos created a bit of magic and got us back to 1-1.

"When that one went in, I felt more at ease then. The whole lads played well in the second half.

"We could have had eight or nine to be honest and that's not being disrespectful to Grimsby, because they've come here and had a go at us and, at times, caused us problems.

"But, at the end of the day they got tired, which you'd expect being a League Two side, and I think our quality shone through in the end."

Grimsby manager Alan Buckley was proud of his team despite the scoreline, but believes they did not show enough belief in themselves when they had a foothold in the game.

Buckley, who saw his side lose to Ince's MK Dons side last year in both League Two encounters and also the final of the Johnstone's Paint Trophy, admitted: "It was always going to be a difficult game.

"At one time you'd come to a place like Blackburn and they'd have 14 or 15 top players in the squad, but now they seem to have 22 or 23 - so whatever team they had put out, we'd have been up against it.

"But at 1-1 I thought we looked a bit threatening, and I thought for 10 minutes we were in control and looked quite comfortable.

"I've got no complaints about our work-rate, but I think we have got to have a bit more belief in ourselves.

"I think we did reasonably well but we didn't have enough belief in ourselves when we had the ball, and we needed a bit more cut and thrust.

"But we have to put into perspective what we've played against - very, very talented players."