NORTH End found them served up to the Wolves on a silver platter thanks to 5-3-2 formation which made them easy pickings from the off.

Lambs to the slaughter? Too easy to drop that one in, but against a Wolves side licking their wounds and with the ability to combine team cohereance with individual flair, North End were lucky to go in at half-time 2-0 down.

The funny formation left Ricardo Fuller and Richard Cresswell stranded upfront, the midfield non-existant the five-man defence vulnerable to attack. Cooks and broth springs to mind.

With just Marlon Broomes and Graham Alexander to marshall the wings,

every North End attacking move was forced through the middle,and with the likes of Kevin Cooper and Paul Ince to beat, that is never going to be easy.

Occasionally, Paul McKenna or Dickson Etuhu showed a flash of inspiration. But as so often this season, the players around them were not on the same wavelength.

Against such confusion,Wolves capitalised and they impressed. Individual displays coupled with fine passing moves meant North End were on the backfoot from the start.

Mark Rankine, the link between these two First Division giants, reckoned North End's priority was to survive the first 20 minutes.

They did that -- although Nathan Blake was left ruing his accuracy when Dean Sturridge charged in from the left, setting up the former Blackburn Rovers' misfit to hit over bar -- but capitulated on 25 minutes when Blake made up for earlier errors.

Launching an impressive run up the field, he left Michael Jackson standing and with Tepi coming at him unleashed a powerful shot which set the home side into the lead.

Wolves then seemed to effortlessly slip up a gear as they continued to press forward, indivual flair combining with team understanding to leave North End standing.

A minute into injury time and Denis Irwin set up Dean Sturridge. He left Chris Lucketti for a mug as he beautifully turned as he collected the cross before knocking the ball beyond Tepi.

2-0 at half-time and there was one word for North End. Lucky. Lucky not to be dead and buried.

For the record, Marlon Broomes had the only the chance of the first half but Matt Murray saved comfortably early doors.

In the second half it was Blake again who posed the biggest threat -- oh how Rovers fans would like to have seen this sort of form from him at Ewood -- charging forward twice early in the second, missing the target on both occasion.

Tepi had to palm away a cross-cum-shot from Kevin Cooper before North end even had a look at the end they were supposed to be striking into.

Fuller summed up North End's problems as he was forced to create the best chance of the game byrunning singlep-handedly upfield before his shot was just palmed wide by Murray.

Then Dickson Etuhu had a 25-yard powered right-footer come close before it was back to the other end and Tepi saving a blistering Cooper drive.

Changes in midfield for North End -- Eddie Lewis and Mark Rankine on for Jackson and Etuhu -- stemmed the Wolves charge but didn't halt it completely. With less than 20 minutes of the second gone, only the post denied Blake before the rebound by Sturridge was bundled up by Tepi.

Cresswell then went solo but sent the ball well wide before Fuller saw an 18-yarder go wide.

WOLVES: Murray, Irwin, Naylor, Lescott, Butler (C), Ince, Rae, Newton, Cooper, Blake, Sturridge. Subs: Feuer, Ingimarsson, Edworthy, Pollet, Miller.

NORTH END: Moilanen, Broomes, Murdock, Jackson, McKenna, Etuhu, Skora, Fuller, Cresswell, Alexander, Lucketti (C). Subs: Lewis, Healy, Rankine, Keane, Lonergan

REFEREE: R BEEBY