BLACKBURN Rovers winger Morten Gamst Pedersen scored with a wonderful free kick at Everton yesterday - and then declared he doesn't like the new balls being used in this season's FA Cup!

The Norwegian played a significant role in Rovers' 4-1 win at Goodison Park, firing in a dipping low shot that led to Matt Derbyshire's fifth minute opener, then he grabbed the second himself when his wickedly curling free kick flew past a startled Tim Howard.

Further strikes from Paul Gallagher and Benni McCarthy put the seal on an outstanding team performance.

But Pedersen later revealed he isn't a fan of the new style balls being used in the cup this season, even though it seemed to cause havoc for Howard.

"Yes it's different," said Rovers' blond bomber.

"To be honest, I prefer the ball we use in the league better.

"But it's even for both teams. I thought we handled it well and we were shooting and the ball moved, so we coped well with it."

Rovers boss Mark Hughes revealed he had ordered his players to 'shoot on sight' because he had noticed the new ball was deviating in the air when his players used it last week.

"We'd highlighted that fact," said the Rovers chief.

"We used the ball in training all week and we felt there was a little bit of an unpredictable edge to the flight of it.

"We therefore felt early on in the game it was a decent option to try and hit the target and see what happened.

"It worked for us and thankfully we restricted them to very few shots at Brad Friedel.

"So it was part of our gameplan and it has come off for us."

Referring to his goal, Pedersen unbelievably added: "It wasn't the best!"