Sam soars to the rescue

Last updated : 02 December 2012 By Tony Scholes

Defeat was staring us in the face but this would have been so cruel. In some recent encounters against them we've almost surrendered but today we were, in my view, the better of the two teams overall and warranted a minimum of that point we got.

I arrived at the Beirut like Turf Moor around ninety minutes before kick off. Gone was my usual Sunday morning shopping with the police having forced this game to be put back 21 hours from its original kick off time.

I could get on my high horse about the police operation, but for once I'll leave it. There's been enough said over the past few days and I just tried to keep out of the way of the police and that nonsense.

One person I didn't quite keep out of the way of was a certain Premier League manager from Old Trafford who was just making his way into the Bob Lord Stand. Is Sir Alex really 70? I walked away thinking that I'd like to think I'll look that good at 70, the truth is I wish I looked that good at 60. Mind you, I don't think he's a committed Claret so he wouldn't have been feeling the tension.

I picked up the team news just before going into the ground. It was as expected and with the suspensions of Ross Wallace, Kieran Trippier and Dean Marney out of the way it was the team most of us expected.

That team was out warming up when I got to my seat. Already the ground was beginning to fill up with repeated announcements for the visiting fans to push up to allow the next lot in. Out came the cap and the sun glasses and I was ready, I just hoped our players were.

The teams came out and our visitors on this occasion were not in any disguise as they came out in their blue and white halved shirts. There was no mistaking who it was.

Nothing much happened for the first few minutes but when the game did really get going it was the Clarets very much in the ascendancy and that's how it was right up to half time with the only set back being the goals scored column remained at zero.

We played some really good football and had Blackburn on the back foot throughout the half to the point where it would take some doing to find a single instance when they caused us any real problems.

That was hardly so at the other end where Burnley did all but score in front of the cricket field stand. So much of our good work was starting with Brian Stock and we were also making inroads down the right where both Trippier and Wallace were in top form.

They defended well, particularly when any high balls were played into the box, but when we got the ball down on the ground they struggled to cope. Chris McCann had a couple of decent opportunities and both Dean Marney and Wallace got in shots.

Charlie Austin saw a shot blocked and even Jason Shackell got involved but fired a shot over the top, and when we did get efforts on target we found former England goalkeeper Paul Robinson a formidable barrier.

He stopped one Wallace shot with a somewhat flimsy palm away that almost let us in but he showed his quality with an outstanding save to deny Austin and another to keep out an effort from Martin Paterson that was curling into the corner.

It just needed a goal and I remain convinced that had we scored during that period we'd have gone on to win the game. Unfortunately it remained 0-0 at the interval.

The second half though was nothing like the first. We struggled to get any authority into our play and as a result there was little to enthuse about attack wise. Blackburn seemed no better initially so there was no problem there, but then they played their trump card.

It wasn't so much that loanee Joshua King came on, more that Morten Gamst Pedersen was going off. I don't like him. Again today he went down untouched and I think his attitude is appalling, but he was awful so the longer he stayed on the better it was for us.

That change signalled the start of their best period and it ended with them taking the lead on 68 minutes. Adam Henley and Mauro Formica were involved down the right and the latter crossed for Jordan Rhodes to head home.

It certainly brought about a mood change. From just being nervous I now felt sick and wondered how we could get back into it. We'd lost our way a bit and I feared the worst. For the next few minutes we couldn't do much to change things but then we, like them, made a change.

Sean Dyche doesn't seem to make too many early substitutions and again we had to wait until the 75th minute for the first change. It was a double change with Danny Ings and Junior Stanislas coming on.

It started to work, particularly with Stanislas who, whilst still being frustrating, was beginning to offer some hope that we might create some opportunities. However, the scoreline remained until Vokes came on with four minutes to go.

With time running out, Stanislas won a free kick. I was initially berating referee Lee Mason, who overall had an excellent game. I felt, and still do, that he should have played an advantage. Thankfully he didn't.

Stanislas took the kick himself and he got a ball into the box of the quality we saw at Ipswich when Vokes equalised. This one found Vokes too and his header couldn't have been better beating the outstretched arms of Robinson and giving Burnley a first goal at home against Blackburn since Peter Noble scored in the 2-1 win on Boxing Day 1978.

The noise levels lifted as the goal was celebrated. The cricket field end went silent and unmoved. We'd surely got something out of it.

Indeed we had, and it could have even been better. Vokes headed over just as Mike Dean stepped up with the board showing there would be four extra minutes, news that wasn't greeted too enthusiastically by the away fans.

We couldn't get that winner we all crave. For many Burnley fans the wait to see their first win against them continues.  It will come, it will surely come.

We played well enough for it to happen today and, as a friend of mine has just said to me, we'll play worse than that this season and win.

Thanks Sam, you made a hell of a lot of us feel so much better with that goal today.

The teams were;

Burnley: Lee Grant, Kieran Trippier, Michael Duff, Jason Shackell, Ben Mee, Brian Stock (Danny Ings 75), Dean Marney, Chris McCann (Sam Vokes 86), Ross Wallace, Charlie Austin, Martin Paterson (Junior Stanislas 75). Subs not used: Brian Jensen, David Edgar, Danny Lafferty, Marvin Bartley.
Yellow Card: Michael Duff.

Blackburn: Paul Robinson, Adam Henley, Grant Hanley, Scott Dann, Martin Olsson, Mauro Formica (Simon Vukcevic 79), Danny Murphy, Josh Law, Morten Gamst Pederson (Joshua King 55), Colin Kazim-Richards, Jordan Rhodes. Subs not used: Jake Kean, Gael Givet, David Dunn, Markus Olsson, Ruben Rochina.
Yellow Card: Danny Murphy.

Referee: Lee Mason (Bolton).

Attendance: 21,341.