PDP Lead Coach Chris Brown was delighted with the Youth Team’s 3-0 win over Doncaster Rovers in the FA Youth Cup first round.
Goals from Juwon Hamzat, Florent Hoti and Harrison Hopper sealed Dale’s passage through to the second round at the Keepmoat Stadium.
“It’s probably the best FA Youth Cup win we’ve had,” said Brown.
“We withstood a lot of pressure, rode our luck at times, but we scored some good goals.
“Juwon’s goal - that’s the set-piece we’ve been working on. I think you need an early goal on nights like tonight.
“I’m really proud of them. They bounced from the first-half to the second-half and showed miles more composure on the ball.
“The decision making was much, much better, and we were able to dominate and control the game.
“There’s a lot of pressure on the lads to perform under the lights in a stadium like this and I thought they did really, really well.
“Some of the defending from James and Juwon – they were rocks at the back. Both of them were composed on the ball and defended really, really well. It gave us a base for the team, along with Morgan Piper who I thought was excellent too.
“The pressure was mounting a little bit and they did well to nullify it. At half-time we were able to reset and go again, put some pointers across of what we need to do, and they did what we asked of them.
“We had composure on the ball, our passing and decision making was much, much better in the wide areas, where the space was for us. Defensively, I thought we were really, really solid.
“Keeping the ball is one of our strengths. We can open up teams, which we did really well in the second-half.
“We trained at night, under the floodlights, last week to them used to not doing much during the day. I think that preparation certainly helped. Doncaster came at us and I think that helps us as a team.
“It was a good performance and I’m really happy for them.”
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