Youths draw with Rochdale

Last updated : 09 August 2006 By Tony Scholes
Dean Stott - provided the cross for Burnley's goal
The apprentices have just returned from Germany where they took Bundesliga clubs Borussia Mönchengladbach and Bayer Leverkusen along with Fortuna Dusseldorf, winning one and losing the other two.

But they looked in impressive form this afternoon and only a combination of woodwork, some good goalkeeping and bad luck prevented us from having the game won by half time. It was hard to believe that it was still goalless and the nearest we came was when Connor Smith hammered a shot against the underside of the bar.

The second half followed a similar pattern and we finally got ourselves in front when Jay Rodriguez scrambled the ball home after a good cross from full back Dean Stott.

We took the opportunity to give some of the Under-16s a run out and as we re-organised following all the changes the visitors equalised. We came back and with just a couple of minutes to go nearly won it when Alex McDonald took the ball down well but hit his first time shot just over the bar.

The league season starts a week tomorrow for the youth team and if they can start to find the net to go alongside some of the good play of this afternoon then it could well be another good season for them.

This afternoon's team was: Jonathan Sergeant (Jack Baker), Dean Stott, Tom Blackler (Chris Lynch), Tom Bradley, Paul Casey (Ben Hoskin), Ali Akbar (Ash Young), Connor Smith (Alex-Ray Harvey), Adam Kay (Chris Anderson), Lewis Craig (James Craggs), Jay Rodriguez, Alex McDonald.