Under-18s coach pleased with fightback
Ian Dawes was pleased with the character shown by Shrewsbury Town's youth team in the 3-3 draw at Blackpool on Saturday - but insists there is plenty to improve upon.Town's Under-18s came back from 3-1 down in the Youth Alliance - North West league fixture at Squires Gate Training Ground to earn a point.
The young Shrews held a first-half lead thanks to Josh Ginnelly's stunning long-range strike but three goals inside the opening 15 minutes of the second period for Pool looked to have given the hosts the three points.
But goals from Jack Butts and a Kaiman Anderson penalty hauled Town level in the final 20 minutes of the match, and Dawes, head of academy coaching, was pleased with the fightback but felt the performance needed to be better.
"It's a bit of a mixed feeling because I thought the first half was one of our poorest performances of the season so far," said Dawes.
"We took the lead through a wonder goal from Josh (Ginnelly) and went in 1-0 up at half-time.
"The disappointing thing for me is that ten minutes into the second half we're then 3-1 down.
"It's got to come to a point where we've got to stop conceding goals, especially just after half-time.
"We've got to respond to that because we keep feeling sorry for ourselves.
"On a positive note, we got it back to 3-3 and we had a couple of opportunities to even win it at the end, but all in all I think it was a fair result.
"We showed character and created a lot of chances, and we thought to ourselves that we've got goals in us and we just needed that one early enough.
"We had a young team out to be fair, we only had three second-year scholars on the pitch."
You can keep up-to-date with the latest news from the Youth Team by Following us on Twitter (@shrewsyouthteam)or by Liking our official Facebook page-facebook.com/shrewsyouthteam.