Wednesday 30th July 2008
Friendly
Vics 1 (Byrom 29)
Blackburn Rovers 2 (Gallacher 50 Fowler 59)

Blackburn set Vics their stiffest pre-season test so far by including seven experienced Premiership players in their starting line up, they included England International keeper Paul Robinson and fellow former International Robbie Fowler.
Not surprisingly Rovers dominated the early stages and almost took the lead when Derbyshire was set clear on goal by Fowler but he was initially denied by a brave save from the advancing Tynan and then saw his follow up shot cleared from the goal line by Matt Bailey. Gallacher then set up Derbyshire but he was again denied by Tynan. The Vics keeper was clearly on top of his game and produced another excellent save to thwart Benny McCarthy. Having survived the initial onslought, Vics settled to produce a spell of probing attacks of their own resulting in Blackburn conceding a series of free kicks around their area. And it was from one of these that BYROM had a strike deflect wickedly off a defender and loop over Robinson into the top corner. The Vics midfielder almost doubled his tally seconds later but Robinson produced a spectacular full stretch save to keep out his venomous 30 yard shot. Rovers wasted a golden chance to equalise just before the break when Judge shot wide of a gaping goal.
Dino Maamria introduced four substitutes at the start of the second half and Vics never quite reached the level of their impressive opening 45 minutes. As it was Blackburn quickly reduced the arrears when GALLACHER rifled his shot into the net after substitute keeper Jones had dropped a corner kick. The former Wrexham keeper quickly made amends though with a fine near post save to deny Treacy. Yet with the hour approaching Robbie FOWLER latched onto a Kane cross and his header took another wicked deflection to defeat the wrong footed keeper. Vics again bounced back to more than match their opponents without causing many problems in the final third leaving them to taste a pre-season defeat for the first time.
The Manager will have been largely pleased with his teams efforts, particularly defensively, and will have acquired many positives from a performance that tested to the full a fairly strong and experienced Rovers team.

Team: 4-4-2
Tynan (Jones h/t)
Sutton (Aspin 55), Bailey (Welch 63), Roberts, Brown /
Williams (Byrne h/t), Crowell, Byrom (Flynn h/t), Mullan (Barratt 59) /
Stamp, Allan (Burns h/t) /
Attend: 425