BURNLEY Under-23 boss Michael Jolley felt there plenty of positives to take as he saw a youthful Clarets side fall to a 2-0 defeat at Blackburn Rovers in the Premier League Cup.

Jolley fielded a team that included six youth scholars against a stronger and more experienced Rovers outfit, who are impressing in Premier League 2 and most of whom played at Fleetwood in the EFL Trophy.

While Burnley were indebted to their one experienced campaigner, goalkeeper Nick Pope, for keeping the score down as he produced a string of fine second half saves, Jolley was happy with his side’s display at Ewood Park.

“We applied ourselves really well,” he said. “The performance was really solid in many aspects, just some of the finer details and a little bit of quality, but in terms of our energy, pressing, work rate and organisation, there were a lot of positives to take.

“The age profile of their team was significantly older. We had six scholars in our team today and it was a good opportunity for them to come and experience this kind of game.

“There were a lot of positives for us to take from their performances and we can see a big future for some of these lads if they continue to work hard.”

Rovers struck twice in the first half with a goal of real quality and one that included a slice of luck.

Joe Rankin-Costello opened the scoring as he curled a 25-yard effort beyond Pope, before Lewis Mansell tapped home a second after Joe Grayson’s cross had taken a kind deflection of Willem Tomlinson.

Pope had already denied Mansell in the first half before he came out on to in a series of one-on-one battles in the second.

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The Rovers frontman was denied three times when clean through on goal as the former Charlton Athletic goalkeeper stayed big.

He also produced a smart save from Jack Doyle, while Tomlinson and Rankin-Costello had efforts that went narrowly wide and over respectively.

At the other end Tinashe Chakwana was Burnley’s brightest spark in attack and he was denied from distance by Andrew Fisher in the Rovers goal, before Arlen Birch glanced a header from Mark Howarth’s corner agonisingly wide.

Jolley added: “I could pick out about six of our players who I’m particularly proud of.

“I thought Arlen Birch and Jimmy Dunne were fantastic, we had good performances all over the pitch  playing against lads who in some cases are three or four years older.

“Most of our under-23s are on loan at the moment. We’ve got 14 or 15 on loan from the football club, we’ve done that to get them league experience and that gives an opportunity to some of the younger lads and a lot of them grasped the opportunity.”

Rovers: Andrew Fisher, Ryan Nyambe, Matthew Platt, Scott Wharton, Jack Doyle, Joe Grayson, Willem Tomlinson, Connor Mahoney (Ramirez Howarth 83), Lewis Hardcastle, Joe Rankin-Costello (Tre Pemberton 78), Lewis Mansell

Subs not used: Tyler Magloire, Ben Ascroft, Lewis Travis

Burnley: Nick Pope, Jimmy Dunne (RJ Pingling 78), Ollie Younger, Scott Wilson, Arlen Birch, Brad Jackson, Freddy Yao (Tunde Bayode 61), Mark Howarth (Taofiq Olomowewe 90), Ali Koike, Tinashe Chakwana, Dwight McNeil

Subs not used: Conor Mitchell, Tommy Wood