Preston Grasshoppers suffer Lancashire Cup defeat

In announcing his team, Hoppers head coach Joel Unsworth selected a mixture of youth and experience for the game.

He said: “After another productive run-out against Lymm and an internal game on Thursday, I am looking forward to seeing the selected squad put their case forward against one of our local rivals in the cup before the season starts next week.”

From the kick-off Hoppers struggled to gain possession of the ball against an experienced and well-drilled Blackburn outfit and were subjected to a continuous onslaught of fast-paced passing plays by their hosts with tries by Russell, Simpson, Jarrold, Mayoh and Burtonwood with one conversion by Gaffey which left them 27-0 down at half-time.

The second half saw the Preston side begin to rally.

The penalty count of the first period was stemmed and they scored two well-worked tries by Kev Brown and Fraiser Stannier, both converted by Jake Squirrell to put themselves back in the game.

Hoppers came close to scoring two further tries only to be thwarted on the line.

However, Blackburn were always the stronger team and replied with two tries from Pilkington, one converted by Fifield, and then Jarrold adding his second to make the final score 44-14.

Joel Unsworth was upbeat about the performance,

He said: “Firstly, everyone’s put in a very good shift.

"This was clearly a development side with a lot of lads who have not played much, or in some cases, any, first team matches,

"And whilst I’m really encouraged by the performance today, I know there is still a lot of hard work for us to do.”