Town First-Team Coach Ross Embleton hailed the performance of his Development side following their convincing 6-1 victory against a young AFC Bournemouth outfit on Tuesday afternoon.
Goals from Anton Rodgers and Islam Feruz had given the Reds a comfortable lead at half-time, before Jermaine Hylton’s incredible four-goal haul put the gloss on a good day at the office.
After seeing his charges produce a polished display, Embleton proceeded to reflect on a number of positives that he was able to draw from the game.
“I was very pleased and it is nice to win a game by such a positive scoreline,” he told swindontownfc.co.uk.
“It was roles reversed this time because we were a little bit more senior in terms of the age of the squad and the appearances that a number of the players have made not just in our first-team but league games in general, so we already stood an advantage against our opposition.
“We still had to go out and perform and the players still had to have the right attitude and I thought they did.
“We dominated the ball a hell of a lot in the first-half and we exposed our opposition in the second-half after we wore them down and we took our chances.
“We trained on Tuesday morning with a view to making sure that we were a little bit more tactically aware, so that helped us prepare a lot more than perhaps we normally get to do for these games.
“We have been in the position where Bournemouth were where we’ve gone away to Peterborough United earlier in the season with a young team and we’ve come up against players with huge amounts of league experience, so it all balances itself out throughout the course of a season and we can only go and perform.
“We needed to make sure the boys had the right attitude to go out and deliver a performance and they did just that.
“Bournemouth made it very difficult for us to play and create chances in the first-half so we took it upon ourselves to try and wear them down and we reaped the benefits of that towards the end of the game.
“We brought Jermaine Hylton on at half-time and they were defending a little bit higher which left plenty of space in-behind, so he was always going to get opportunities to score some goals with his pace and his ability when one-on-one with the goalkeeper.”
Embleton then went on to heap plenty of praise on Jermaine Hylton, who notched four goals in just 45-minutes to cap off what was an extremely impressive cameo.
“Jermaine has probably missed out on featuring in these Central League games because he’s been involved with the first-team and he’s ended up training with them on the day we’ve had games,” he continued.
“We just felt that yesterday was important to give him 45-minutes in the same way that we did with Islam Feruz, so that was a positive for Jermaine.
“He created a number of really good opportunities for himself, got himself a hat-trick and then added a fourth at the end of the game and he probably could have had another couple on another day, so for any centre-forward playing in any game it is important he scores and Jermaine did that yesterday.”
Anton Rodgers and Islam Feruz were also both on the scoresheet, with the latter producing a sublime finish just before half-time.
“Anton always practices those free-kick techniques and albeit he got a little bit of luck yesterday, it shows that practice makes perfect,” Embleton continued.
“It is important that when a striker plays in these games he wants to get goals and I think you would struggle to see another goal like the one Islam scored yesterday at this level.”
Finally, Rohan Ince and Jesse Starkey were both given the chance to impress in a Town shirt for the first time on Tuesday, and Embleton was pleased with what he saw from the pair.
“Minutes is important because they haven’t played as much as the other boys so we need to try and make sure that they are at a level where they can be ready to step into the first-team, so getting minutes into them was a priority,” Embleton said.
“Rohan has had huge amounts of Championship experience so we know he is a quality player, but it was nice to see him settle in and show us that he picked up the tactical information we had given him in the morning.
“The same goes for Jesse as well. We asked him to play in a certain way with a little bit more discipline and he delivered that really, really well.
“I thought they both performed really well.”