Damien Johnson felt Rovers exploited Liverpool’s weaknesses, and nullified their threats, after a fourth win in five games moved them to fifth in the Premier League 2 table.

Joe Rankin-Costello and Dan Butterworth set Rovers on their way to victory at Anfield, with the hosts grabbing a consolation late on.

Rovers’ goals came from the flanks, with Rankin-Costello heading home a Stefan Mols cross while Butterworth fired home after a ball in behind from captain Tyler Magloire.

It was the perfect way to respond to their Premier League Cup quarter final defeat to Everton last week, and sets them up nicely for their Lancashire Senior Cup final against Burnley next week.

It also represents a fine end to the season for Johnson’s men who finished with nine wins from their 22 league matches, following promotion last term, having not won any of their opening eight.

“To come to a place like Anfield and win, the players have to take great credit for that,” Johnson said.

“Certainly in the first half I thought we were outstanding, in terms of doing what we asked of them during the week, nullifying Liverpool’s strengths and trying to exploit areas that we thought we could get at them.

“You accept that you’ll have pressure to deal with from them in the second half, but if I’m nit-picking then we’re disappointed with the goal we conceded.

“We knew that we could get at them from wide areas. It was a good passage of play before the cross came in for Joe’s goal, before Dan found the space to go on and score after an excellent pass from Tyler.

“I think we had plenty of other good moments and could have scored more, but maybe lacked that little bit of quality to find those finishes.

“But overall I’m really pleased to see us playing with the intensity we showed - I thought that was missing from us at Everton on Tuesday night.”

Rovers weren’t at their best at the Toffees last Tuesday, beaten 2-1 at Goodison Park, having fallen two goals behind inside the opening quarter.

But Johnson got the response he desired to complete the double over the Reds and ensure a fine end to an excellent campaign after last season’s promotion. He made two changes to his side, with Mols and Jack Vale brought in to the starting line-up in place of Harry Chapman and Joe Nuttall.

And Johnson felt the win topped off an excellent second half to the campaign from his side who will look to add the Lancashire Senior Cup to their name against the Clarets next week.

“It was important to have a reaction from the group after Tuesday and I certainly got that from the lads,” Johnson added.

“The form since the first round of fixtures has been very good and it was nice to finish that off with the victory.”