Head of academy coaching happy to earn point
Ian Dawes was proud of Shrewsbury Town's youth team after they fought back to earn a 3-3 draw against Preston North End with ten men on Saturday.Town's Under-18s spent more than 75 minutes of the game a man down after midfielder Alex Fletcher was sent off as a result of the incident which led to North End equalising to 1-1 with a penalty.
A Tom King spot-kick brought the young Shrews back to 2-2 at Shrewsbury Sports Village before the visitors re-took the lead, and substitute Jordan Wilson rifled in a second equaliser for Town late on.
It left Dawes, Town's head of academy coaching, pleased that his side's work rate with ten men was enough to earn them a point from the match.
"I think that, after the sending off, 3-3 was probably a fair result," said Dawes.
"We had to change our game a little bit, sit off them and try to frustrate them.
"The boys did really well, worked hard and earned the point in the end and it would have been a catastrophe if they hadn't got a point because the work rate, and the bits of quality they had even with ten men, meant they deserved it.
"I thought that with 11 players we looked quite comfortable and could have won quite convincingly in the end, the way it was going."
First-year midfielder King scored Town's first goal, the opening of the game, after ten minutes by finding the roof of the net from Ethan Jones' cross before converting a penalty to make it 2-2 going into half-time.
King now has six goals in all competitions this season, and Dawes believes his contribution in front of goal will be important for the Under-18s throughout the campaign.
"Tom's movement is very good and he has improved over the last few months," said Dawes.
"If you get into good positions then you're always going to have a chance to score and to be fair to Tom he takes his chances.
"It's important that you get goals coming from other areas rather than just the strikers. Tom's chipped in with a few and let's continue to hope he does that."
Dawes was also delighted to see subsitute Wilson score the 82nd-minute equaliser with his one and only chance when coming off the bench.
"Jordan did really well when he came on," said Dawes.
"We knew at that point we had to take a few more risks with it being 3-2 and the clock running down.
"To be fair to Jordan he's made a good run behind. got through on goal and had once chance and taken it."
And with no youth team fixture penned in for Saturday 18 October, albeit there is an under-17s friendly at Liverpool on Wednesday, Dawes believes a weekend off will give the lads a good rest.
"They've had a lot of games recently so it won't do them any harm to have a weekend off and then we can get back into training and start the programme," he said.
Listen to Dawes' interview on the official Shrewsbury Town audioBoom account byclicking here.
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