Liverpool Reserves 1 Blackburn Rovers Reserves 0

A YOUNG Blackburn Rovers side battled valiantly against a near full-strength Liverpool first team at Anfield.

A Steve Staunton header from a corner broke the deadlock with 25 minutes remaining.

But Liverpool keeper David James was forced to make two stunning saves from Kevin Davies and a long-range Lee Fitzpatrick effort to keep Rovers at bay.

And reserve team coach Terry Darracott was full of praise for his players.

He said: "A lot of Premiership sides would have struggled against that line-up.

"I told that lads that I was as pleased with last night as I was with the 6-1 win over Derby.

"It was good for the young lads to pit their wits against those players and, although we probably defended abit more than I would have liked, I was absolutely delighted with them."

Starting line-ups: Liverpool - James, Kvarme, Song, Staunton, Babb, Thompson, Ince, Ferri, Leonhardsen, Dundee, Newby.

Rovers - Flowers, Richardson, Murphy, Scates, Taylor, Brown, McAvoy, Dunn, Hamilton, Davies, Fitzpatrick.

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