Neil Mellor continued his fine goalscoring form with a hat-trick of goals to help Preston North End's reserves to a fine 6-1 win over Accrington.

The Preston striker grabbed one in the first half as the teams amazingly went in level with the scores 1-1 at the break. But PNE put on a five-star second half show to blow away Stanley with Mellor adding two more, Simon Whaley grabbing a brace and Brett Ormerod grabbing a goal on his return to Stanley.

On an afternoon when many of the players would have prefered to have been at home watching England, Preston put in a professional display to grab their second consecutive away win and continue their impressive goalscoring form.

Mellor opened the scoring early in the first half but the Lilywhites' second string conceded a sloppy goal just before the break to make the scoreline 1-1. It was a goal that came against the run of play and when the team got into the dressing room coach Billy Barr asked his players for more of the same but to raise their levels, and they did exactly that!

"They came in at half-time and I just told them to pick it up a bit. We had dominated the game and let them back into it with a sloppy goal, in the second half we have come out and done ever so well," said Barr.

"We bossed the game for more or less the whole second half and scored five goals in the process. It's nice that Mells has scored a hat-trick, Brett's got amongst the goals again and Simon Whaley's got back on the scoresheet with two."

The standout goal for North End came with a sweeping move across the field and finished with Whaley slotting home. It was a goal that pleased Barr: "It started with the left-back, has been played through the middle of the pitch and gone out to the right-hand side, it was crossed in by  Aspin and finished by Whaley. We've made a run through the middle and he is looking to get put through the middle by one of the midfielders, but he's held his position and picked the pieces up. It's a job well done.

"McKenna has got 90 minutes under his belt again, everyone got 90 minutes as we made no substitutions, no injuries so we have done very well."

PNE: Chris Neal, Aspin, Shearwood, Bloxam, St. Ledger (capt), Fairhurst, McKenna, Whaley, Lewis Neal, Ormerod, Mellor (Subs: Mainwaring, Thompson, Appiah, McMahon, Mayor)