ROVERS midfielder David Bentley has revealed the secret of Blackburn's European success is a pair of Jockey underpants!

The England U21 star donned them for Rovers' first UEFA Cup match against Austrian side Red Bull Salzburg and he has been wearing them ever since for the club's European matches.

Blackburn have remained unbeaten throughout their European campaign and have qualified for the knockout stages of the competition with Bentley also scoring a wonder goal in the Salzburg match at Ewood Park, and a last minute winner away against Polish side Wisla Krakow.

Since then he has never looked back and earned himself the man-of-the-match award in last week's Under 21 international draw between England and Spain.

He has vowed to stick with the same underpants for as long as Rovers are in Europe, hopes their lucky charms will also rub off on the club's Premiership run-in.

He said: "Like most footballers I have my superstitions and if something brings you some luck then you stick with it.

"I bought a pair of these underpants before the first Salzburg game. I scored and we won so I decided to wear them for the next game and I scored again in the Krakow game in Poland.

"We've done really well in Europe, and our Premiership form is improving, so long may it continue."

Superstitions are nothing new for footballers. Juventus' Adrian Mutu wears his underwear inside out, and Spain's star striker, Raul, was berated for turning up at training sporting a yellow T-shirt, a colour his coach, Luis Aragones, considers to bring bad luck.

In 1966 England's Nobby Stiles insisted on following an painstaking, intricately-detailed routine that involved rubbing olive oil on his chest and greasing his face and hands, while team-mate Jack Charlton would habitually change studs at the last minute and could not end the warm-up without scoring.

Rovers manager Mark Hughes admitted he wasn't entirely convinced by the underwear superstition, although he conceded anything that brought his side luck tomorrow night in Leverkusen would be greatly appreciated.

He said: "I don't know about lucky pants, but I've heard of managers having lucky coats before now."

Ruth Stevens, marketing manager for Jockey, said: "We're delighted David is wearing them and they have brought Blackburn good luck in Europe. Meanwhile, Hughes expects David Dunn to be fit to face Bayer Leverkusen tomorrow.

There were initial fears the former Birmingham midfielder would miss the game after suffering a dead leg during the 1-0 defeat by Everton on Saturday.

However, the problem is not as bad as was suspected and he was due to travel with the Blackburn party to Germany today.

Hughes said: "David got a nasty bang on the hip. Although it is sore on the impact area we don't anticipate the problem will cause him to miss the game."