Blackpool boosted their hopes of escaping relegation from the Championship as they thumped Queens Park Rangers for only their second league win since October.

Jordan Thorniley added a fourth and although Chris Martin pulled a goal back for the visitors, Lyons headed in his second of the night to make it 5-1.

Kenny Dougall struck a late sixth as Blackpool moved within three points of safety.

With the Tangerines tasting victory just once in their previous 19 league games, boss Mick McCarthy made six changes to his line-up and the shake-up paid instant dividends as they sped out of the blocks.

Rob Dickie handled a shot from close range after Rangers failed to clear a cross and referee Jeremy Simpson signalled a penalty, which Yates smashed past Seny Dieng for his 10th league goal of the season.

Blackpool doubled their lead when CJ Hamilton wriggled free on the left and cut the ball back for Lyons to tuck into the far corner – and it was 3-0 when Dieng spilled a free-kick and Nelson rifled in his first goal for the club.

Martin went close to reducing the deficit when his effort was cleared off the line by James Husband, but instead Blackpool stretched their lead further as Thorniley rose unchallenged to head in from a corner.

There was a faint glimmer of light for Rangers just before the interval when Lyndon Dykes delivered a cross for Martin to head home – but that hope was extinguished within three minutes of the restart.

The visitors were undone by another corner from the right and this time Lyons nodded past Dieng to complete his first double as a Tangerines player.

Morgan Rogers almost compounded the Hoops’ misery soon afterwards as he cut inside and beat Dieng again with a rasping drive that bounced back off the post.

Sam Field went close to responding with a header that sailed just wide, but Dougall sealed a memorable victory with two minutes remaining as he controlled Chris Maxwell’s clearance and fired home.

Blackpool manager Mick McCarthy:

“The lads up front destroyed QPR tonight, but even though we were 4-1 up at half-time, I knew we’d need to do it all again in the second half.

“We did that, though, and once we’d got the fifth there was no coming back from that. I really wanted a big performance from the lads tonight, and I think I got it.

“We were excellent right from the start. I knew QPR could cause us some damage, but we just flew at them in the early stages.

“I couldn’t have asked for any more than we got tonight. This kind of result doesn’t happen very often.”

QPR head coach Gareth Ainsworth told BBC London 94.9:

“I’ve never had a six in my career and that’s a real trouncing. It’s not good enough and I just want to apologise to all the fans – for QPR that’s an unacceptable performance.

“Make no bones about this one – this is Blackpool, who have struggled for wins all season and they’ve smashed us 6-1 tonight. I can’t say I’ve seen that coming.

“We’ve got to defend set-pieces a lot better than we did – five of their goals are set-pieces. A penalty, two free-kicks and two corners.

“If we can’t defend set-pieces, we’re going to be in trouble. We looked nervous, we looked quite weak and we’ve got to get over this.”