BLACKBURN Rovers’ youngsters will be aiming to build on their 1-1 draw at home to Under-18 Premier League defending champions Manchester City when they make the trip to Stoke City on Saturday (11am).

Billy Barr’s side settled for a share of the spoils with City at Brockhall last Saturday in what was a great advert for academy football.

Rovers passed up the opportunity to take the lead midway through the first half when Joe Grayson saw a penalty saved after Stefan Mols was brought down in the box.

But they did get their noses in front soon after when Brad Lynch played in Daniel Butterworth to open the scoring with a fine finish.

Rovers were pegged back on the stroke of half-time in controversial fashion after claiming the ball had gone out of play before Tom Dele-Bashiru fired beyond Ben Ascroft.

And their frustration with the officials rose after the restart when Butterworth, latching on to a pass from Grayson, was brought down by the last defender.

The referee, however, brandished only a yellow card.

Undeterred Rovers continued to press forward in search of a winner and Tre Pemberton twice went close to notching one.

The winger saw one effort roll agonisingly wide and another, right at the death after being set-up by Te-Jay Robinson, Butterworth and Jack Evans, tipped on the post by the City goalkeeper.

Rovers boss Barr said: “It was refreshing to watch an academy match played like that.

“Everyone said it was such a good game, it was end-to-end, there were fair tackles and good attacking play from both sides.”