BLACKBURN 3, BURNLEY 2

FANS of Blackburn Rovers and Burnley have had to wait eight-and-a-half long years before seeing two of football's fiercest rivals lock horns in league action.

Back on April Fool's Day 2001, Rovers won 5-0 and maufactured pop band Hear'Say had just reached number one in the charts.

Much has changed since then, the boys from the band have sunk without trace, but this Lancashire hot-pot always had all the ingredients for a compelling affair and it did not disappoint.

There were two goals inside the opening nine minutes and Blackburn went in 3-1 ahead at the break, a lead they were to maintain pretty comfortably in the second half despite conceding an injury-time goal to Chris Eagles.

Rovers simply backed off when Robbie Blake collected a pass from Wade Elliott with five minutes on the clock. The skilful 33-year-old showed his finishing prowess against Manchester United earlier in the campaign and cracked a similarly explosive finish beyond Paul Robinson's dive to spark wild scenes of jubilation in the away end.

This is a grudge match in every sense of the word and the relief was obvious when the hosts took only four minutes to draw level. The excellent Franco Di Santo produced a classy flick to a Morten Gamst Pedersen cross and, fittingly, the chance fell to David Dunn. The all-action local lad played in that 2001 fixture and swept home an unerring finish before wheeling away in delight.

WILD: Dunn celebrates his equaliser

Suddenly, Burnley began to look like a team that had lost of all their away games this term. Blake's strike had been the first goal they had managed on their travels and they fell apart under some sustained pressure.

El Hadji Diouf drilled wide before the Clarets' defending of a free kick was disgraceful at this level of football.

Chris Samba won the ball at the back post and headed across goal, where Brian Jensen fell over team-mate Stephen Jordan. Panic set in and Graham Alexander, inexplicably, popped up a header straight to Di Santo, who gratefully nodded his first goal since joining on loan from Chelsea.

To call it Sunday League defending would be an insult to the park players up and down the country.

Jensen looks unbeatable at Turf Moor but the man the fans call 'The Beast' was a bag of nerves, regularly flapping at crosses and striking fear into his defenders.

Samba headed over a Dunn corner before Pedersen's header released Pascal Chimbonda just before the interval. The French full back cleverly cut inside Steven Fletcher and despatched a calm finish past Jensen for 3-1.

Fletcher tried to atone by producing decent efforts on goal either side of half time and Burnley improved with Steven Caldwell's header requiring a desperate clearance from Chimbonda.

Di Santo showed up well in attack for Blackburn, displaying great confidence and leading the line impressively, and things were looking pretty comfortable for Sam Allardyce until Eagles's introduction as a substitute.

The former Manchester United man forced a fingertip save out of Robinson, far more composed than his opposite number who escaped one nightmare moment when winning a foul out of Samba and seeing the ball bounce over the bar, and raised Clarets' hopes in injury time.

Jordan centred from the left and Eagles swooped to convert with his left foot and prompt a late spell of pressure from Owen Coyle's side.

However, Blackburn broke and Jensen was lucky not to cap a dodgy performance with a red card when he mowed down Jason Roberts. Referee Chris Foy sensibly, but perhaps leniently, awarded a yellow.

Blackburn are up from 17th to 12th but, more importantly for their supporters, they have the bragging rights - at least until the return game at fortress Turf Moor, where Burnley have proved to be a very different proposition so far in their debut Premier League campaign.

"Obviously, you can see by the reaction from the Blackburn fans at the end how much it means," said Dunn.

"I've lost my voice and I'm sure a few of them have as well.

"To score against Burnley is great but let's be fair, more important than that is we got three points.

"The next couple of games are really difficult so it's great to get to 10 points before we get to those games."

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