ANDY Cooke and Paul Smith ended frustrating seasons on high notes as they and the Clarets whet the appetite for things to come.
Smith signed off from another injury-ravaged campaign with a 35-minute substitute's appearance as Burnley stretched their unbeaten run-in to 11 games in a 2-2 draw at relegated Northampton.
And that was thanks to Cooke, who drilled home a late equaliser to end his 11-game wait for a goal and make it double-figures for a season interrupted by injury and illness.
"It was brilliant for Cookie because he's been close a few times and I'm delighted for him," said manager Stan Ternent.
"But again it was a good team performance. I made a change early on with Ally Pickering with Brad because I didn't think we were very effective down there.
"And then Paul Smith came on and had a good 30-35 minutes which will do him no harm through the summer. So that's pretty good."
Smith delivered a couple of quality balls on his return from double knee surgery.
And it's to be hoped that he is fully fit next season when the Clarets will be looking to pick up where they have just left off.
Ternent added: "They showed good professionalism because the season was over for us, although I thought we probably should have won the game. We gave away a couple of soft goals but sometimes that happens. But they showed great resilience to come back again so all-in-all it's a nice way to finish the season.
"It was satisfactory performance considering where we are up to and the lads were determined to finish the season without losing and all credit to them. That was very important to us and all the supporters were down to make it a good atmosphere."
Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.
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