Huddersfield Town's Under-17s can learn a number of things from the Notts County match

- Leigh Bromby explains what the Under-17s can learn from the Notts County game
- Young Terriers dealt well with going down to nine men
- Academy Manager pleased with youngsters’ progress

Academy Manager Leigh Bromby explained how Huddersfield Town’s Under-17s can learn a number of things from the Youth Alliance game against Notts County.

The Young Terriers beat the Magpies 2-0 away from home despite going down to nine men after just 30 minutes.

When focus on the opening half an hour of the game, Bromby was delighted to see the youngsters adapt what they’ve been doing in training on the pitch.

“The game was scrappy for the first five minutes,” explained Town’s Academy Manager.

“The first goal gave them some real confidence and they went on to show some good attacking play.

“We’ve had a real focus on playing forward, attacking runs, receiving the ball to play forwards and the defenders driving out to break the lines; that’s the theme of work for the second part of this season.

“It was excellent watching that click for 30 minutes. You could see they’ve taken on board a lot of the information, so that was really pleasing to see.”

Despite the pleasing first half an hour, two of Town’s Under-17s saw red for their involvement in a melee.

Town’s Academy Manager explained how the youngsters will learn from this experience and handle themselves better in these type of situations in the future.

“You could watch the incident and say a few of the players could’ve been sent off, but our lads were more aggressive than theirs.

“The youngsters have learnt that there’s a line on aggression. They’re young players, so the main thing is that it doesn’t happen again.

“You don’t want to take aggression out of people’s games, but it’s important that they know what that line is, and we will teach them that.

“For us, it’s all about learning from that incident. They’re now banned for three games, so they will miss their football. If their first incident happens when they’re in the First Team, then we haven’t given them that full experience.

“We can use that situation as an example.”

The red cards changed the whole dimension of the game and Bromby was pleased to see how the youngsters managed the rest of the game.

“The situation actually allowed us to take a lot from that game. Going down to nine men and having to defend for the rest of the game was really interesting.

“The players had to come up with the game plan and were having to learn on the pitch. The way they did that and defended was excellent.

“They showed teamwork, working for each other, resilience, they put their bodies on the line – all the things supporters want to see up to First Team level.

“It was pleasing to see their commitment and how they can do it when they put their minds to it. For us as coaches, we got loads out of that game.”

For Bromby, the match against Notts County was a great example of how much the Young Terriers have developed since coming into the Club at the start of the season.

“The plan was for it to be challenging for the U17s this year and we knew they weren’t going to win many games.

“It’s been an excellent programme and now we are starting to see the rewards of it.

“This was the first time in a little while when we played our strongest team and if we’d have kept 11 players on the pitch, I believe we would’ve won comfortably.

“We expect that now and that’s why we play players at a higher or older level because when they play for the younger team they perform really well.

“We have an exciting group. There are some really good players in there that will hopefully progress up the pyramid with us.

“When we changed the direction of the Academy we hoped that we would reap these benefits, so to actually see them happen and take shape is really pleasing for everyone involved.”

Town's U17 team vs Notts County (3-4-3)

Giosue Bellagambi; Mustapha Olagunju, Nassim Kherbouche, Tom Bamford; Jaheim Headley, Taylor Annakin, Josh Austerfield, Tim Akinola; Sam Sharrock-Peplow, Kian Harratt, Andrew ijiwole

Final score

Notts County 0-2 Huddersfield Town Under-17s

Scorers

Jaheim Headley, Sam Sharrock-Peplow

Red Cards

Jaheim Headley, Kian Harratt