Accrington Stanley 0 Town 2
Monday 14th April 2008
PUMA Youth Alliance

Town: GK Jasbir Singh, RB Jake Ellis (Danny Taylor), LB Aaron Gibson, CB Harry Hooman, CB Leon Miles, RM Steve Davey, LM Kalum Evitts (David Howarth), CM Sam Heenan (Tom Dicks), CM Tom Moss, F Andre Gray, F Jan Coulston

Goals: D.Howarth, A.Gray

Town's youth side were on winning form when they travelled to Accrington Stanley for their re-arranged game.

In front of first team manager Paul Simpson the youngsters took all the points with two late goals from Howarth and Gray.

After the game head of youth Nigel Vaughan was pleased with his sides' performance and the win: "It was a 2-0 win and the pleasing thing was that Paul Simpson was at the game to watch the lads for a second time. That is superb news as he is now getting to know the players in the youth side.

"The performance on Monday was not as good as I thought it could be, the pitch at Accrington wasn't the best but it was the same for both sides. The lads tried to get it down and pass and did ok but we could have done better by getting the ball down and keeping it a little better.

"We didn't score until late on, we made some changes bringing on U16 Tom Dicks, David Howarth and Danny Taylor. David Howarth, who is a Shrewsbury lad, gave us that little bit of emphasis that we needed up front by giving us that bit of pace and sharpness.

"We changed the system and put Steve Davey in behind the front two, to be fair to Steve he hadn't been doing that well out wide, and he got in behind the forwards and created the two goals for us.

"The first goal came after Steve Davey played a lovely through ball to find Andre Gray; he then brought the keeper out and then slipped the ball to the side to allow David Howarth to score his first goal for the youth team.

"The second came after a good header from Harry Hooman found Steve Davey, he brought it down nicely and then played in David Howarth who then returned the compliment to Andre Gray who slid the ball in from 5-yards out after drawing the keeper.

"It was good to see that we showed good fitness levels throughout the game and deserved to win.

"Jas Singh did well with a shot in the second half but other than that he wasn't in any trouble whatsoever and I can't remember him being forced to make a diving save.

"The youngsters have come in and they have that passion, commitment and want to do well and that really adds to the side. The manager said that the three lads who came on never looked out of place and at times he said they looked better than some of the first years.

"That is encouraging as it shows that Steve Wheatly and Carlton Leonard and the Centre of Excellent are starting to produce good players. Realistically this is our first year since setting up conditioning training on Tuesday night with Kevin Seabury, Phil Edwards, Ian Alsop and Nathan Ring. These lads are now coming into the first team and they are much more developed than they have been in the past."