YOUNG winger Matty O'Neill made his debut for the Clarets first team on Saturday and is now hoping to be offered a professional contract.

O'Neill was given a warm welcome from home fans looking for any ray of hope and his youth team coach Terry Pashley admitted: "I was delighted for him.

"He got a good ovation from the fans and for the short time he played he did well. It was a strange situation to go on, 6-4 down was not ideal but I thought he did okay.

"He looked confident and you could sense that he gave the crowd just a bit of a lift.

"In the next couple of weeks I will have to have a talk with the manager about Matty next season but we have got another four lads in a similar situation. We need to get the all sorted."

A few hours before O'Neill made his thrilling debut, his youth team colleagues battled to victory against Grimsby Town at Gawthorpe.

And it took a 93rd minute winning goal from emergency striker Liam Eves to secure all three points.

"With Richard Chaplow, Mark Rasmussen, Joel Pilkington and Matty all needed by the manager we had a small quad and I had to have three defenders on the bench," explained Pashley.

"The lads have all played a lot of football and I told Damian Hindle he would only play part of the match in attack.

"When I put Liam up front I just told him to try and get in among them and little Tom Ince did really well to go past three down the left, he pulled the ball back and Liam put it in from two yards."

The other goal was fired in by Welsh striker Rhys Carpenter but Pashley explained that the margin of victory should have been far more comfortable.

"We hit the woodwork five times and it was amazing it was 0-0 at half time," he said.

The young Clarets will be back in action at the weekend when Doncaster will be the visitors to Gawthorpe although it is likely they will again make up the bulk of the reserves side that is taking on Walsall this afternoon.