FIRST the good news.

In the likes of Earl Davis, Tony Bowden, Anthony Shandran and Chris Clark, Burnley have four class acts who have every chance of breaking into the first team in the not too distant future.

Now the bad news.

Burnley crashed out of the Lancashire FA Youth Cup at the first hurdle for the second successive season.

Now, it was not for the lack of effort, but Blackpool's bigger side proved to be the decisive factor as the Seasiders muscled in and stole the show.

It was a shame, because at times it looked as if Burnley could shake off the memory of last season's first round exit - with the four players that formed the backbone of the side in fine form.

Davis is a colossus in the Sol Campbell mould at the back, skipper Bowden inventive in midfield, with Clark tackling anything that moved beside him, while Shandran is a player with genuine pace up front.

However, while Burnley had to call on four 15-year-olds to make up the side, in Darren Connell and Daniel Coid, Blackpool had two players who had already tasted first team action this season.

And it was the latter who settled the cup tie with a strike that underlined the reason why he had already broken into the senior ranks. There was a hint of offside when Gavin Ellison turned away from David Savage but he pulled the ball back to Coid on the edge of the area who hammered it into the top right hand corner past the otherwise excellent Andy Paxton.

The Clarets obviously knew their cup dreams were over and protested in vain to the linesman about the offside, which only resulted in Bowden, Clark and Savage all getting booked.

By that time Davis had been pushed forward in search of an equaliser and you can't help feel that if he was still at the back, Blackpool would never had scored.

If anything, Burnley had the better of the first half, with Shandran especially looking very dangerous.

On one occasion, when two Blackpool players contrived to lose the ball on the touchline, the pacy striker whipped in and set off on a mazy run and was only foiled by the legs of keeper Daniel Robinson.

Shandran also had a shot blocked on the line by Brian Manchester after a flick on by Davis. Bowden then fed Joel Pilkington on the right and his excellent cross had the keeper in all sorts of trouble.

However, as the half time whistle went, you sensed that so did Burnley's chances as they failed to take advantage of their chances. Clark had a right old ding-dong battle with Rickie Lambert throughtout the 90 minutes, but after the break Lambert began to get the upper hand.

Twice in the opening minutes, Lambert fired a shot just over then went close with a free kick.

But Burnley traded punches with their visitors and Shandran and Bowden both fired in shots that missed the target.

However, the Clarets had the stuffing knocked out them when Patrick Lynch scored from close range when Lambert's effort was blocked and ran kindly for the striker.

Burnley will be looking to keep the cup hopes alive when they play Mansfield Town in a Times FA Youth Cup first round replay at Turf Moor on Thursday night.

BURNLEY: Andy Paxton, Joel Pilkington, Brian Fogarty, David Savage, Earl Davis, Jonathan Leary, Paul Barrett, Tony Bowden, Anthony Shandran, Chris Clark and Andrew Waine. Subs: Liam Eves, Andrew Davis, Dominic Licastri and Gary Ingham.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.