Blackburn Rovers kicked off pre-season for the 2024/25 season with a 2-1 win away at Accrington Stanley.

John Eustace split his squad into two, with Rovers' more senior players taking the field for the first half. In the second half, it was a completely changed XI with plenty of youngsters getting first-team experience.]

Joe Rankin-Costello opened the scoring for Rovers in the first half, bundling home from a corner kick. 

Dilan Markanday added a second after the interval, finishing easily after Jack Vale squared it to him having beaten the offside trap.

Accrington pulled one back with just over 15 minutes remaining. A blocked free-kick led to a goal-mouth scramble which was eventually fired in by Josh Woods.

Rovers saw the game out and started pre-season with a victory and, more importantly, some important fitness for the players.

The visitors started off brightly in what was a very standard pre-season match. As the first 15 minutes passed and the touches became sharper, they started to force some openings.

Tyrhys Dolan saw the first real effort of the match saved by goalkeeper Michael Kelly. A corner was taken short, crossed by Callum Brittain and flicked goalwards but kept out.

From the resulting set-piece, Rankin-Costello netted the opener, turning in from close range in front of the away end.

Rovers grew in confidence after that and got particularly joy down their right side. Brittain went on a mazy run, found Dolan but his shot was saved by Seamus Conneely.

Shaun Whalley hit a free-kick narrowly wide, in the only real threat to Rovers' goal. It went just past the post with much of the crowd celebrating, thinking it had crept in.

The biggest concern for Rovers was an injury to Sam Szmodics just before half-time. The forward had treatment on his ankle before heading down the tunnel, albeit he was about to be changed anyway with a minute left of the first half.

A completely changed team got off to a bright start after the restart. Nice link-up down the right between Dilan Markanday and Leo Duru saw the latter pick out Jake Garrett but he shot just wide.

The same pair combined again down the right side with Duru this time finding Vale in the middle but he hit the bar from close range.

Rovers doubled their lead on the hour-mark. Vale beat the offside trap after a nice ball from John Buckley and squared for Markanday to finish easily.

Woods pulled a goal back for Stanley in the final 15 minutes. A free-kick on the edge of the box ricocheted around the box and landed at his feet for him to finish.

That proved to be the last bit of proper match action, with Rovers winning 2-1 with a goal in either half.