BURNLEY'S young players learned a couple of harsh lessons as they lost 4-1 to Tranmere Rovers at the weekend, the fourth time this season that they have been beaten by them.

Boss Terry Pashley explained: "If you miss chances at one end and make mistakes at the other you will not win games."

The Wirral side have finished on top of the North West region Youth Alliance after a successful campaign but Pashley believes his players squandered a good chance to put one over on them.

"We made more chances today than we have in any other game against them," he said. "We actually had four one-on-ones with their keeper and failed to score from any of them.

"We were 1-0 down at half time after a mistake by keeper James Salisbury and then we had a shot cleared off the line after half time.

"That was by Matthew O'Neill and he did score 60 seconds later to get us level. Then we made two more individual errors, we were 3-1 down and that was it.

"To be fair their fourth goal was a good one but we were made to pay for our errors. To our credit we did at least make chances against the top sides."

The final phase of the season will start at the weekend when the Clarets start their campaign against sides from the north, central and north east regions.

"We don't know the full details of who we will play and when we will play them but that will all be sorted out in the next few weeks," said Pashley. "We have got another eight games to play.

"We have been doing well in the last few weeks and we hope that we can keep that sort of form going."

Meanwhile it was the turn of his youngest players to sit in on a mock press conference at Turf Moor as the development of the club's scholars continues off the field as well as on it.

The first year players spoke about the experience of starting on the bottom of the ladder, the increase in their fitness levels and the frustrations of being ruled out of action by injury.

The players in the hot-seat were Paul Scott, Sean Blakey, Robert Grimes, Rhys Carpenter, Steven Richardson and Richard Chaplow.

The event was videoed so that it can be played back and the youngsters can see themselves in action and learn about dealing with the media and press relations.

The third years had a similar session last week and on Friday it will be the second years who will complete the programme.