Speaking after our U18s 4-2 victory against Sheffield Wednesday on Saturday, Tom Harban expressed his delight at the young Reds’ derby day win that saw them leapfrog the Owls.
Josiah Dyer’s hat-trick and Hayden Pickard’s strike were enough to seal all three points as Barnsley climbed to second in the Professional Development League.
“I think it was a good result, to stay up and around the top two,” began Harban. “We got a little setback last week with that result against Hull even though we played excellent.
“I though first 10-15 minutes we were all over the place not good enough in terms of the basics. The goal was easily preventable, and it put us on the backfoot straight away, but I thought after 20 minutes arguably, on the whole, we were the better side and deserved the win in the end.”
After a poor start to the game the game flipped on its head with three goals in nine minutes just before half-time.
Two from star man Dyer and another from Pickard meant that the team had a comfortable second half with one hand already on the three points.
“I think it is always the case in game where we have to get a goal at some point that it kind of settles the lads down, but to go in 3-1 up at half-time, its fair play to the lads,” continued our U18s coach.
“I was just saying to Josiah all season when the ball is in wide areas just stay between the posts and he has got three goals where he is just between the sticks, in the right place at the right time so yeah, the lads have done really well after that first 20 minutes to put themselves in that position, so I’m really pleased.”
With four fixtures of the campaign remaining, the Reds are well placed to reach the end of season play-offs, although teams around us have games in hand.
However, pressure will be on the rest to make up ground, and Harban insists that our youngsters are taking it one match at a time.
“We are just going to go into every game now with that we want to win them; we want to go and perform,” he stated.
“We made changes to the team and the lads that have come in haven’t played as much football as maybe they would like, but I think on the whole they have done really well.
“So, we will just take it one game at a time. If we get wins, then we will just see where we end up.”
