Burnley won't suffer cup hangover - Pickup

Accrington’s revolt at Thorneyholme Road led to the abolition of the champions following their record-breaking four-year dominance in the competition.

Bharat Tripathi’s successor accepted that their exit hurt but he’s determined to move on. “It was massively disappointing.

“We’ve obviously prioritised it a lot over the past few years and we’re really proud of what we’ve done in the competition. It was never going to last forever but it’s never nice when it ends.

“We wanted to carry it on and make it five on the bounce which would have been an incredible achievement.

“It was a massive sickener to go out, especially in the first round. It hurts to lose it and we’re gutted to be out of the cup.

“I think we’ll be able to get it out of our system. It was always going to come to an end at some point. I don’t expect there to be any hangover from it. It’s all forgotten about now.”

Burnley take on Nelson in the mini-derby at Turf Moor fresh from their first win of the campaign over Enfield at Dill Hall Lane.

Pickup is confident of putting a run together in the Lancashire League but he’s wary of a professional that recently smashed a limited overs record.

After suffering at the hands of Todmorden’s Kelly Smuts, who hit an unbeaten 130 after also setting a new league record, Burnley face Devon Conway who fired 231 not out against Rishton at Seedhill.

“We’re looking forward to it,” he said. “We’re up against another pro who is in good form. We seem to be facing them all after they’ve just fired double hundreds.

“There have been some amazing scores so far this year. Hopefully he won’t do what Kelly Smuts did to us the other week. There have been some ridiculous scores, it’s crazy.”

He added: “It was nice to get that win under our belts. It has been coming though because we’ve been playing some consistent cricket.

“We’ve just not been able to get over the line. We’ve been playing well but it was good to get that monkey off our backs. We just want to kick on now.

“I think it’s going to be one of those years where there’s not really one stand out team. We’ll be flying up the table before you know it. There’s no reason why we can’t do that; we just need to put a bit of a run together.”