BEFORE the first team did it, Blackburn Rovers Academy battled back from two goals down to record their first victory of the Under-18 Premier League campaign.

Billy Barr’s side won 3-2 at home to Derby County on Saturday after staging a storming second-half comeback through a brace of Mason Fawns goals and a superb last-gasp Ben Williams winner.

And Rovers boss Barr: “We had a bit of a go at them at half-time but having looked back at the video we weren’t actually as bad as we thought, we just threw it away in the last five minutes.

“It rattled them a little bit and in the second half they went out and were very good.

“We got back in the game with Mason scoring his first and had other chances before his second goal.

“It was a deserved winner in the end and what an unbelievable free kick from Ben Williams. I don’t recall him ever scoring in my time at the club.

“Fair play to him, that gives him a little boost now, so he’s got to make sure he stays brave and gets people off those free kicks if that is what he can do.

“It is good to get up and running.”

Derby scored twice in the final three minutes of the opening period before Fawns reduced the deficit in the 72nd minute when he took advantage of an error to fire home from close range.

And the substitute doubled his tally 12 minutes later with an inswinging free kick which flew past the Rams goalkeeper.

That was the way it stayed until injury-time when Williams hit a sensational left-footed free kick into to the top corner to spark jubilant scenes at Brockhall.

Rovers travel to Newcastle United on Saturday.