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| Central defender Alex Whitmore |
With Rochdale confirming the venue as Salford City it was a late intervention that got us to the correct venue but not before we'd inadvertently taken a wrong exit on a roundabout that led us straight into the Tesco car park in Middleton.
It was a mere delay as the crowds flocking for the cut price Easter eggs tried to block the exits but minutes later were at the venue well ahead of kick off to see that, again, it was a very young Burnley team that was playing.
We made two changes from the team that had lost to Shrewsbury in midweek. Cameron Dummigan, back from Northern Ireland duty, was in at right back with Waqas Azam switching to left back for Christian Hill who was named as a substitute.
Further up the pitch, Ntumba Massanka replaced Andreas Bianga in a team that has not one single second year scholar available due to loans and injuries.
Rochdale started the brighter but we overcame that and had a decent spell which should really have seen us go in front. Unfortunately, the two or three presentable chances were all missed and you sensed we might pay for it.
That we did with the home side scoring twice in just a few minutes. The first was a good finish but the second was very avoidable as the goalscorer was allowed to turn too easily in the box before getting in his shot.
2-0 was the score at the interval and it was 3-0 soon after and for a short time things could really have got worse. However, we settled down and kept chances to a minimum and had one or two opportunities ourselves.
This is when the problems started on the touchline and I've never witnessed anything like this in my years of watching youth team football. From what I can gather one of the Rochdale parents was not happy when his son was fouled and was instructing him to take retribution.
I kept well out of it, being non confrontational, as did one of the Burnley mums. It shouldn't happen; it's not right and I hope someone at Rochdale has a very strong word with him.
The game petered out just as the sun came out to lift the temperatures and for Burnley it was a second successive defeat this week.
We've now three games remaining. We are at home against Walsall next Saturday and then play two away games in the following week. The Port Vale game has been re-arranged for Wednesday 10th April with a trip to face current leaders Wrexham in the last game on Saturday 13th April.
Only Luke Conlan of the second years has any chance of being available but it would be beneficial if we could get some of the other injured players back.
The team today was: Callum Jakovlevs, Cameron Dummigan (Kevin Ly), Charlie Holt, Alex Whitmore, Waqas Azam, Brad Jackson, Luke Daly, Nathan Lowe, Lewis Nuttall (Jamal Crawford), Ntumba Massanka (Christian Hill), Jamie Frost.