Ahead of the Youth Team’s game against local rivals Bury tomorrow, PDP Lead Coach Chris Brown is hoping to begin the second half of their season with a win.
It will be the Youth Team’s first game of 2018, having not played since before Christmas, and they can’t wait to get back on the football pitch.
“Nevermind the players, the coaching staff are [chomping at the bit],” said Brown.
“We’re really raring to go. There’s been a lot of training sessions and a lot of hard work has been put in since our last game.
“It’s about five weeks since then, so we’re really looking forward to the game tomorrow. It will be really good for us to get some minutes on the pitch and actually play some football, instead of training all the time.
Dale were 4-1 winners over Bury when the sides last met back in October, and although he says it will have no bearing on this fixture, he is hoping for another positive outcome.
“Every time we play Bury it’s always competitive. They’re our local rivals, so we’re really looking forward to the challenge.
“Last time we played them, we played really well and we’ve had some good results against them, so hopefully it happens tomorrow.
“Every game is a new game. We always look forward to developing as a team and individually, and also play some of the younger lads which is really good for the club and for them to get that valuable experience.”
Having had 15 consecutive days of training without a match, the coaching staff decided to take the scholars to the Bear Grylls Adventure Course at the Trafford Centre during the week for a much-needed change to the repetitiveness of training.
“The lads were getting a little bit restless and their focus wasn’t on training as much as it should have been.
“I think that was just down to the amount of sessions that we’ve done. As a coaching staff we thought it would be beneficial for the team to have a different environment and a change of scenery, but also to work hard as well because the fitness centre was really tough on the body.
Some of the obstacles and challenges were really hard! Energy levels from then have bumped back up to where they should be. It was something they enjoyed, being competitive against each other, and it was really good to see them challenge themselves differently.
“They’ll need to show the competitiveness they showed against each other in the game tomorrow.”
You can watch the full interview on iFollow.
Tomorrow’s game takes place at Carrington Training Complex, Carrington Lane, Carrington, Manchester, M31 4AB. Kick-off is at 11am.