BURNLEY first-team coach Stuart Gray once splashed out a club record £4m to sign Rory Delap for Southampton – and didn't even know about his throws.

It wasn't until later in his Saints career that he stumbled across the fact that Delap could launch throws with as much pace and accuracy as your average corner.

"Stuart was telling me they didn't know about his throw," said Burnley boss Brian Laws ahead of tonight's clash at Turf Moor.

"He just picked a ball up one day and did it. We know it's going to be a missile of a throw and we've got to deal with it."

Laws reckons that Tony Pulis always knew the throw would be a valuable weapon in the top flight.

He said: "Premier League players don't practise heading the ball because they don't want to head it.

"Tony spotted that and thought 'I'll give you something you don't like'."

Asked if he was taking any other precautions to combat Delap's rocket-launchers, he quipped: "I've already done it. Our pitch is a lot wider and the advertising boards are right in."

Laws can also call upon the expertise of Leon Cort after he frequently profited from Delap's deliveries during his two years at the Britannia Stadium before January's move north.

Cort lines up in the heart of a Burnley defence in need of all the help it can get – and Laws has already tapped up the defender for some inside info on tonight's opposition.

"We're going to lean on him because he's been in there, so he probably knows more than most," said Laws. "He knows how they'll set up, and they're not going to change it for this particular game. If they do, then all well and good."

Burnley go into this evening's clash, re-arranged after its postponement January 9, on a run of four successive defeats and with a damaging sequence of only one win in their last 17 Premier League fixtures.