CLARKE Carlisle hopes sizes matters as Burnley bid to become the headmasters of the Championship.

The Clarets famously went an entire season without scoring from a corner in their Premier League campaign.

But with four goals from set pieces already this season, Carlisle hopes their new-found ammu-nition will help them climb head and shoulders above the pack.

Burnley dropped in the table this week, albeit only one place to sixth, after two late goals for Middlesbrough consigned them to back-to-back away defeats ahead of tomorrow afternoon’s game at Crystal Palace.

But towering defender Carlisle knows how they can rise again.

“In successful sides you usually find you’ve got your 20-goal-a-season striker but you’ve got maybe four or five other players on half a dozen each, and that’s what propels you to success.

“And hopefully with the height we’ve got in the side – when we see the line-ups of the other teams we really do drown some of them out – we should be capitalising on set pieces.

“There will be a mis-match in one area of the pitch and we need to make sure we find where that is,” said the 30-year-old, who admits he has been surprised by how much height they have on most of their opponents back in the Championship.

“I hadn’t noticed that before but as the weeks are going on this season we do seem to be drowning out a lot of sides.

“I consider myself to be one of our better headers and on Tuesday night I’m marking Leroy Lita – and no disrespect to him and his heading prowess – but I’m six inches taller than the guy.

“Surely there’s someone taller to mark! But that’s just the way it is, and hopefully we’ll take advantage of that. That should lead to more set piece goals for us.”

And that’s a sentiment echoed by manager Brian Laws.

“We couldn't buy a goal from a set play last year but we’ve worked really hard on the training ground doing regular routine work,” said the Clarets boss.

“We did last year, but the delivery’s been better in the key areas now, and that's been the difference.

“We are physically a big side.

“In the Premier League you’re playing against bigger, better and faster defenders. Now I’m always confident when we get a set play that we can get a goal from it.

“We are a danger, and that puts the opposition on the back foot. They'll get nervy with it and eventually it works in our favour. I’m pleased with our return so far and I think there's much more to come.”

And smarting from a late suckerpunch at Middlesbrough, after leading 1-0 through Andre Bikey’s header from a corner, is something Carlisle believes can inspire them.

“We kind of experienced both sides of the coin in three days,” he said, in reference to Burnley clinching a late comeback against Preston to win 4-3 at Turf Moor last weekend, after trailing 3-1.

“It was quite a deflated dress-ing room on Tuesday. We really thought we'd done enough to win the game and we have got the experience to know how to see out games like that.

“We know that with a minor tweak here or there we have a side that's capable of getting results home and away.

“I think it would be more worrying if we were going away and getting slapped and having no positives from performances.

“That definitely isn’t what’s happening. It’s not like last season. This season there's a completely new focus, theres a new dynamic about the squad and there's a new capability, and that will come to the fore.”