MARK Hughes has jumped to the defence of his teenage striker Matt Derbyshire following his sending-off in Saturday's bad tempered friendly with 1860 Munich.

Derbyshire, who joined Blackburn Rovers from Great Harwood in a £20,000 deal two years ago, had only been on the pitch a matter of minutes when he was controversially red-carded for a late tackle on Munich's Brazilian defender Rodrigo Costa.

That challenge sparked an ugly melee in which Costa appeared to trade blows with Rovers midfielder Garry Flitcroft, and when order was finally restoreD, Derbyshire and Costa were both sent off by the German referee, much to Hughes' frustration.

The Rovers boss said: "Matt's a young boy, he'd only just come on, and he made a genuine attempt to get the ball, but unfortunately their guy overreacted and Matty didn't deserve the card he got.

"In fact, I didn't think he even deserved a yellow card, to be perfectly honest, but people have to understand it's only early in the season for the referee too, so maybe he needs a few more games before he gets up to speed because he wasn't very good all day."

Now Derbyshire is facing a possible three-game ban as a result of the incident, although Hughes is still hopeful commonsense will prevail and the referee will admit he made a mistake.

Hughes said: "Matty made a genuine attempt to get the ball and their guy overreacted.

"The referee then thought he'd even up the teams by sending both players off, which was the wrong decision, but we hope he won't report it because on reflection, it was never a sending-off."

The game ended in a 1-1 draw, but Rovers appeared to be heading for a defeat until Paul Gallagher popped up to score an 88th minute equaliser which cancelled out an earlier strike from Munich's Nemanja Vucicevic.