DISAPPOINTED Burnley boss Stan Ternent felt his side were robbed of a place in the second round of the Auto Windscreens Shield by two contrasting penalty decisions at Wigan last night.

Ternent criticised referee George Cain for awarding Wigan a spot-kick to cancel out Alan Lee's opening goal and then rejecting Burnley's claims for a penalty in the last minute of normal time.

That left the score deadlocked at 1-1 but the Clarets went out when 17-year-old debutant Andrew Morris struck a golden goal 15 minutes into extra-time to take the holders through.

Ternent said: "I thought the first decision for the penalty was nothing short of farcical and I thought that Andy Payton's was a blatant penalty and he didn't give it.

"I feel that the only poor performance didn't come from any of the players, so I think I should leave it at that.

"We've had two smashing matches with Wigan with good, open attractive football but unfortunately our name wasn't on it last night, and the man in black made sure of that, I think."

Graham Branch was penalised for bundling Jeff Peron to the floor to allow Carl Bradshaw to equalise with Wigan's eighth penalty of the season just before half-time.

But if that was a penalty, then Payton certainly looked to have a decent claim when he turned past Kevin Sharp but had his legs taken away when looking to force a late winner, which Ternent felt would have been fully justified."

The manager added: "I thought we played extremely well. We hit the woodwork three times, we were by far and away the better team over the course of the match. "Overall I'm absolutely delighted with the way the lads played because there were a lot of good performances. A lot of lads who haven't had a look-in have come back and shown that we've got a nice strong squad.

"I thought the overall performance was excellent and we were very unfortunate not to win the match."

Ternent rested Andy Cooke, Paul Cook, Micky Mellon and Gordon Armstrong with a view to Saturday's FA Cup third-round tie at Derby County and the League games to come.

Paul Weller made his first start for well over a year and Branch, Lenny Johnrose and Lee, who opened his goal-scoring account for the club, all came in.

Mark Robertson and Tom Cowan also made welcome returns as substitutes, alongside late replacement Chris Brass. And although 15 minutes of extra-time wasn't ideal preparation for Saturday's cup clash, Ternent reported no major injury worries to cloud the build-up to the Cup weekend. He confirmed: "There were no tired legs on our side, although Paul Weller coming back, and he played extremely well, ran out of gas at the end which you would expect. "Glen had a wallop on his leg and Branchy had a wallop on his thigh but they are superficial things and I'm sure they will both be alright.

"Westy went over his ankle but he's going to be okay as well. It's been a good exercise and we are disappointed that we haven't progressed to the next round. But I don't think it was any of our doing that we didn't.

"The performance was good and we've got to take heart so we will look forward to going to Derby on Saturday and if we play as well as we did last night, then who knows what happens?"

Burnley's scheduled reserve game at home to Lincoln City tonight has been postponed due to the wet conditions.

Rossendale Clarets' coaches are full for Saturday's trip to Derby County. Depart: Woolpack 9.15, Rawtenstall 9.20, Waterfoot 9.15, Stacksteads 9.20, Bacup 9.15, Todmorden 9.30, Rochdale 9.45.

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