CRYSTAL Palace manager Alan Smith hailed his rising stars after guiding the Eagles to their first ever win at Turf Moor.

Young strikers Mikael Forssell and Clinton Morrison grabbed a goal apiece to give Palace a last-gasp 2-1 victory and Smith was delighted with his players.

He said: "They're fresh, exciting and good to watch. There's so much pace in our team we are difficult to handle. In the first 20 minutes we outplayed them but their keeper played very well. He's a good keeper and he kept them in it, although I thought their best two players were Glen Little and Ian Cox, who we had at Palace, so it was a good day for us.

"We really deserved to win. It would have been a complete injustice if we hadn't got something out of it.

"Every week I've been looking over my shoulder but this gives is a cushion. If we had had a better start we would have been pushing up there for a top spot."

However, the Palace boss admitted that he thought the chance had gone when Julian Gray and then Forsell both spurned late opportunities thanks to good defending from Paul Weller and Cox.

"I just thought it had slipped away from us when Julian missed that chance and it's not like Forssell to miss like that," he said.

Gray bounced back to create the opening that saw Palace collect their first win over the Clarets in four attempts this season and Smith added: "They are on a bad run at the moment and we had that in our mind. They are probably reverting to where they should have been at the start of the season.

"Burnley played better in the second half when they had something to hang onto. All Stan's teams are battling teams. Teams reflect the personality of their manager."

Palace's fourth away win of the campaign might have been their first at Burnley, but Smith once enjoyed a 1-0 success at Turf Moor when on the coaching staff at Wimbledon.

"I like it here. It's a real football town and a real football club. I don't know if you have those down south," he said.