BURNLEY'S pre-season opener against Cork City was 'perfect' for the Clarets, according to boss Sean Dyche.

A Jimmy Dunne goal saw the Clarets to a 1-0 win over the League of Ireland champions, who fielded plenty of youngsters with this friendly sandwiched in between their Champions League qualifying ties with Legia Warsaw.

But City boss John Caulfield had told Dyche his young charges would have a real go and so it proved in a tight game at Turner's Cross.

"It was perfect for us," said Dyche. "I spoke to John before the game and he said they’ve got some young lads but they’re fit lads and they’ll have a real go, which they did.

"We’ve had a really tough week and the lads have done well to come through that. We trained hard this morning, we wanted to use this as a second session but still being respectful of the game. I'm really pleased.

"When we were chatting before the game John was saying these lads do compete, they do well over here and they’re a good side. They showed patches of why, they work hard, they’re well organised, it’s been a really good work out for us."

Most players involved came through 45 minutes in the game, although Aiden O'Neill played the full 90, while Ashley Barnes played just under 40 minutes as he struggles with blisters on his feet.

Matt Lowton (groin) and Steven Defour (calf) weren't risked, while Robbie Brady also sat the fixture out as he returns from a serious knee injury.

"We had to be careful with a few, Barnesy has come off but only as a precaution, he’s got awful blisters, Robbie we’re being careful with as he comes back, Lowts has got a tight groin," said Dyche.

"At this stage it’s being ultra careful, but it’s good minutes in the legs."

On Barnes, Dyche added: "You could see he couldn’t get around the pitch like he normally does and we’ve got to be careful at this stage.

"Hopefully Lowts will be ok for next week, he wanted to train this morning but the medics and myself thought at this stage, we’ve had a real strong week, a big fitness day on Wednesday, and we thought it was a precaution to make sure these players come through fit, because we are once again skinny on numbers for one reason or another.

"Robbie has done great this week, Steven had a niggly calf, you often get a secondary injury when you’ve been out for a long time, we try and avoid that when we can, but he’s on top of that.

"Robbie was purely precaution, he’s trained really hard this week and his body is getting more used to what you’d call first-team training."