Elliott Dickman took plenty of heart from the way his players started their Premier League Cup campaign last night.
Goals from Williams Kokolo and Jack Diamond secured a 2-0 win in blustery conditions at Eppleton CW, as the young Black Cats went top of group A.
16-year-old Dan Neil was handed his first start for the development team while fellow first-year scholar Cole Kiernan came on as a substitute, as Dickman looked to promote the next batch of talent in the academy.
Speaking post-match, the under-23s boss hailed the quality of goals on offer before later paying homage to the young duo’s involvement.
‘I’m really pleased, I thought the Lads did terrific,” he said.
“I thought we played a little better than what we have done in previously weeks. There’s still room for improvement – our quality in possession at times could’ve been tidied up a little bit better.
“The Lads have been terrific, they have trained really hard and some of the results in recent weeks haven’t gone our way but last night it did.
“The two goals we scored were terrific. Young Dan Neil was given his first start in the under-23s and he did smashing, as did Williams (Kokolo).
“The first goal was a really good goal and so was the second one. We talk to Jack (Diamond) a lot about his end product and to be fair to him he is listening.
“He has gone out there and done it, it is a really good strike.”
He continued: “Sometimes when you have 16-year-old lads playing, physically it is going to be difficult for them.
“But I thought Dan handled that well. Cole came on and did terrific. He has done terrific for the under-18s, he scores goals and he has had a little taste of it.
“Hopefully he wants more of that. We gave them an opportunity, it is a learning environment for them.
“You might suffer with results at first but the long-term results is that one or two of these lads might get a chance in the first-team.”
