Late goals win it for the Clarets

Again Clarets Mad was busy into the early hours of the morning as we watched the action unfold but a largely uninspiring performance looked to be taking us to a goalless draw until McCann struck in the 79^th minute.

Thunder thought they'd equalised almost straight from the restart but a powerful shot had come back off the side netting and it was Burnley who scored again when Rodriguez turned the ball home from close range in the first of two minutes of stoppage time.

Just as in Cary last week the Clarets started brightly but the opening came to nothing and for much of the game we hardly threatened to create chances in conditions that were again difficult with high temperatures and humidity. Following that only Paterson came close but his cross shot from the left just before half time went wide.

The second half was interrupted with no fewer than eight Burnley substitutions with only Steven Caldwell and Chris McCann of the outfield players staying on for the entire ninety minutes as Owen Coyle used all of his available squad which was without both Bes Berisha and Remco van der Schaaf who were both nursing knocks.

Adam Smith was our man at Blaine tonight and he'll be providing us with a full match report.

The teams were;

Minnesota Thunder: Platter, Greendfield, Arango, Friedland, Moran, Gonzalez, Altman, Bass, Sanchez, Tarley, Moojen, Subs: Wieler, van Oekek, Kallman, Taylor, deRouz, O'Brien, Gibson, Barron, Smith, O'Brien, Paye, Marcina, Pederson.

Burnley: Brian Jensen, Graham Alexander (Stephen Jordan 61), Clarke Carlisle (Michael Duff 61), Steven Caldwell, Christian Kalvenes (Adam Kay 78), Chris McCann, Kevin McDonald (Alex MacDonald 83), Joey Gudjonsson (Alan Mahon 61), Wade Elliott (Steve Jones 61), Robbie Blake (Ade Akinbiyi 67), Martin Paterson (Jay Rodriguez 78).