No cup run for Tower Power

Last updated : 07 February 2005 By Tony Scholes

Rossendale United's Dark Lane
A reasonable gathering of Clarets fans made their way to the Unibond League club’s ground with the news that Chris McCann was ruled out with a knee injury sustained last week as well as Darrell Avery who has a double hernia.

In came Centre of Excellence schoolboys Jack Overson and Connor Smith, both sons of former Clarets Vince Overson and Jeff Smith. The two youngsters certainly didn’t let the side down.

Young Jack is certainly no chip off the old block and although he played in the centre of defence alongside Neal Trotman. He had a nervous start but stuck to his task and got stronger and more assured as things went on.

Connor lined up in the midfield alongside Nicky Platt and again had a good game prompting the attack as Burnley dominated.

Left back Martin Reilly converted the first from a right wing cross and it was 2-0 as Kyle Lafferty broke through and beat the goalkeeper with ease. We really should have had more before the half time whistle whilst at the other end Blackpool didn’t really create a clear chance.

Half time gave the players a breather and the fans a chance to get themselves a hot drink and for some a tray of chips, all for around £1 and certainly the drinks went down well as the temperatures dropped.

We got a shock in the second half when Blackpool pulled one back but we soon fought back from that and really started to dominate. Two superb efforts came back off the bar before Nicky Platt planted a shot from outside the box right into the corner to the keeper’s left.

That was it but we came back for more and added a fourth when the ball was played across to Tom Ince on the left who made no mistake from about fifteen yards out.

We had to settle for four but certainly could have had more. It was another good performance by the lads and the result was fully deserved. They played well as a team and there were good performances all over the park but I thought Kyle Lafferty had an outstanding game.

He’s tall, very tall, and won a lot of balls in the air, but he has a superb touch and pace to go with it. This is no doubt the strongest youth team we have had for a good number of years and hopefully they might just be able to go one step further than last year’s team who lost in the final last season.

It really is cold up at Dark Lane though.

The teams tonight were:

Burnley: Michael Hale, Rob Henry, Neal Trotman, Jack Overson, Martin Reilly, Marc Pugh, Nicky Platt, Connor Smith (Dale Underwood), Tom Ince, Cayne Hanley (Rob Turner), Kyle Lafferty (Jay Rodrigues). Subs not used: Mark Crossley, Paul Casey.

Blackpool: Joe Abbott, Scott Metcalfe, Paul Parle, James Foran, Matthew Lawlor, Sean Clancy, Matthew Kay, Danny Whittaker, Sean Paterson, Ryan Watson, Cabbar Bagdagi. Subs: Brown, Halstead, Matthews, Greenall.