BLACKBURN boss Mark Hughes is ready to give youth a chance as Rovers step up their pre-season preparations in Germany this week.

Hughes has whisked his players off to Bavaria for a 10-day training camp and Academy starlets Matt Derbyshire, Gary Harkins and Andy Taylor have all been included in the 27-man touring party, with the plan being to give them some action in the friendlies against 1860 Munich and Real Mallorca.

All three players featured prominently in Saturday's 2-2 friendly draw with Morecambe and Taylor, in particular, caught the eye during a 45-minute cameo appearance in an unfamiliar right-back role.

Now the trio are set to get a further chance to impress over the next eight days, while Lucas Neill, Brett Emerton and Morten Gamst Pedersen have also linked up with the squad at their training base in the Bavarian Alps after returning from an extra week's rest.

Hughes said: "It's important that we go away together as a group. I think that helps with the team ethic and the team bonding.

"Obviously, we have got new players that have come into the club, so that will help their situation, too.

"We are playing two quality teams in 1860 Munich and Real Mallorca so it will be a good standard of games, which is important."

It's not the first time Rovers have gone to Germany for pre-season training and the combination of a warm climate and superb facilities make it an ideal base for this type of trip.

The squad are staying at a hotel Hughes knows well from his days with Bayern Munich and the adjoining training facilities are amongst the best in the region.

"It's a completely different place to where we've been in the past, but it's a place I know well from my Bayern Munich days," said Hughes.

"We are actually staying in the hotel we used to stay in when I was a player with Bayern and we used to go there the night before all our home games.

"It's in a fantastic setting and it will be perfect for us to do our work so we are ready to go from the moment we get back."

Hughes has taken virtually all his senior players to Germany, apart from Lorenzo Amoruso, who has stayed behind to undergo further rehabilitation on his knee injury.

Robbie Savage is in the party, though, although he's unlikely to feature in either of the two match as he's still not fully recovered from the operation he had on his groin at the beginning of the summer.

Rovers face 1860 Munich in Landsberg on Saturday (kick off 3.15pm local time), then Real Mallorca will provide the opposition in the second match at Kirchdorf in Tirol, which is just over the Austrian border, next Tuesday night (kick off 7pm).

The full squad in Germany is: Friedel, Taylor, Todd, Nelsen, Matteo, Johnson, Tugay, Flitcroft, Gallagher, Bellamy, Dickov, Enckelman, Harkins, Mokoena, McEveley, Gray, Derbyshire, Douglas, Reid, Jansen, Kuqi, Thompson, Savage, Gresko, Neill, Emerton, Pedersen.