BartonRaz wrote:What sort of standard are these boys? In comparison to our U18 side from a couple of years back.
As others have touched on, we have a very young side this year, mostly 16 year olds, and while some of them have progressed from last season's U16s the majority are new to the club so will inevitably take some time to settle and gel.
The one year age gap still makes quite a difference at that age. You will find that a lot of teams are very strong one year as most of their squad are 2nd years, weak the following season as the new 1st years come through, and then strong again once they progress to 2nd years. Bugbrooke have a good youth setup, so I imagine most of their team last night have played together for several years.
I've also only seen our U18s once, the previous round victory at Dunstable. There were some good individual performances, but their understanding as a team is not there yet. I'm not sure if they've had much pre-season training either; as the team is linked to the college they may have only just started regular training now that the college year has begun. They definitely haven't been training regularly since June/July when most teams would have started.
From what I've heard from Darren Purse and Gareth Ivett, they are a very promising group of players, some of them having just recently left Football League clubs, and I'm sure we'll see what they're capable of in time. Although it might take until next season before we see their true potential.
