ROVERS Under 19s kicked off the new Academy season with a four-star show against Leicester City at the weekend.

Coach Rob Kelly, who swapped roles with Ian Miller in the summer, was delighted with the attitude and commitment of his young charges.

And he believes there's still plenty more to come from his side over the next nine months.

"It was a good performance," said Kelly, reflecting on his side's 4-0 win.

"Leicester came determined to make life difficult for us and it took us the best part of an hour to wear them down.

"However, we finally over-ran them in the second half and it turned out to be a good result and a pleasing performance.

"But there's still lots of work to be done because we know we can get better."

Paul Gallagher was the star of the show with a well-taken brace on the day.

He set the ball rolling with a coolly taken volley in the first half to give Rovers a 1-0 interval lead.

Andy Bell then applied a neat finish to a sweeping four man move shortly after the break before Gallagher grabbed the third and Jerome Watt completed the scoring from the penalty spot after Alan Morgan had been tripped in the area.

The Under 17s then made it a win-double by beating their Leicester counterparts 1-0.

Andy Reid grabbed the all-important goal with a first half header as Miller also started his new job with a victory.

"Ian said that was another very competitive match," added Kelly.

"It was fast and frantic as you'd expect on the opening day of the season but they did enough to win it without ever quite playing as well as they can do."

Rovers' two Academy sides are next in action away at Watford this weekend.