Town U18’s Boss Alan McLoughlin was happy with his new-look side following their 3-0 win against Winslow United on Tuesday night.
Goals from Sol Pryce, Ollie Rejek and Elliot Duggan got pre-season off to a flyer for the young Reds and Macca felt there were plenty of positives to take from the game.
“It was quite eventful and unfortunately our goalkeeper, Archie Matthews felt his thigh and I didn’t want to risk him, so our Strength & Conditioning Coach, Dan Watson was plucked from the bench,” he told swindontownfc.co.uk.
“We won the game 3-0 and it was a very competitive game. It was 16 and 17-year-olds playing against men and it is something we try to do with the players.
“You do worry when you play against men that they can get a bit frustrated when 16-year-olds are popping the ball around, but I have to say that Winslow gave it a right go in the first-half and they stretched us and gave us some problems.
“We were comfortable in possession and dominated in possession but couldn’t find a way through.
“We had to be patient and eventually we managed to find the breakthrough. They had a man sent-off and quite rightly so after about half an hour, but that made it a little bit more difficult because they sat in and defended.
“They were quite hard to break down but a set-piece routine we work hard on worked like a dream and Sol Pryce scored.
“That broke the deadlock and we went on to comfortably win the game thanks to goals from Ollie Rejek and Elliot Duggan, who is a first-year scholar.
“I was pleased overall with how aggressive we were and it is difficult for 16-year-olds to play against men, but it is character building and this is why we go to places like Winslow.
“I was very pleased with them but there is a lot of things to work on and it is going to be a long season because we have a lot of new recruits in the building.”
Town’s U18’s have taken on a large intake of first-year scholars this season and Macca has stressed that it will take a certain period of time for his new recruits to bed in.
“It is going to take a long time and it is going to take a long time for the new intake of scholars to understand what I like to do and how we like to play,” he added.
“We do stretch the players by playing different systems and I’ve got a duty of care to educate them as best as I can in different systems over a period of six weeks and then change the system again.
“We feel that it is important we experiment and we stretch the players as much as we can so that they can gain as much knowledge and experience as possible over a two-year period.”
