Blackburn Rovers Reserves 1 Sunderland Reserves 1. . .

BLACKBURN Rovers kept up their unbeaten start to the FA Premier Reserve League season with a deserved point against Sunderland.

David Thompson's strike a minute before half-time cancelled out Chris Kingsberry's early opener for Sunderland, making it two draws out of two for Rovers at this early stage of the season.

The game at Durham City's Archibalds Stadium was played in soaking conditions, after a freak storm forced referee Richard Hewitt to suspend play.

With only 10 minutes on the clock, Alex Bruce made an excellent tackle to deny Jack Wanless a shooting chance from the edge of the box but the ball broke to Kingsberry 18 yards out and the wet surface saw his right-footed shot across David Yelldell beat the keeper and sneak in the bottom left-hand corner.

Lucas Neill fired across the face of goal from a good position just before the half-hour but Rovers levelled in the 44th minute.

First Thompson saw his 30-yard free-kick deflected just wide of goal to force the first of two corners in quick succession. From the second, Thompson met Gary Harkins' flag-kick from the right with a free header eight yards out at the far post and the ball flew into the roof of the net.

On the stroke of half-time, Rovers were inches from going in front when the impressive Thompson put Matt Jansen through with only goalkeeper Ben Alnwick to beat, but Jansen's shot from just inside the box hit the inside of the post, rolled across the face of goal but went behind for a goal kick before the striker could get in a second effort.

Clear chances were few and far between in the second period but Rovers had the best opportunity and should have made sure of the three points when Jansen split Sunderland's back line with a through ball for Harkins, but his first touch was poor and the goalkeeper raced to the edge of his penalty area to slide in and make the tackle.

Sunderland: Alnwick, Williams, Lynch, Clark (Smith 46), Collins, Dickman, Whitehead, Ryan, Leadbitter, Wanless, Kingsberry. Subs not used: Taylor, Carson, Dodds, Flynn.

Blackburn Rovers: Yelldell, Neill, Morgan, Danns, Bruce, Peers, Harkins, Douglas, Jansen, Thompson, Donnelly. Subs not used: Taylor, Fielding, Johnson, Derbyshire, Byrom.

Referee: R Hewitt

Booking: Dickman

Attendance: 540