Youth team go nap at a cold Gawthorpe

Last updated : 06 March 2013 By Tony Scholes
Two goals for Jamie Frost

This was a game that's been postponed a couple of times, abandoned after 153 seconds because of high winds and has now finally been played in almost arctic conditions as the biting wind took hold during the afternoon.

Ahead of the game I was able to speak to a couple of our young central defenders. It's disappointing news for one of them but superb news for the other.

The player suffering the disappointment is Tom Anderson who went out to Hyde on loan. Tom suffered a medial ligament injury a week ago in their game against Alfreton and expects to be out for around five to six weeks.

The fantastic news was seeing Jack Errington back at Burnley. He's back in full training and hoping to play in a couple of weeks after recovering well from the heart surgery he underwent back in the autumn. Seeing Jack fit and well puts just about everything else that's happened at our club into perspective.

Onto the game and Terry Pashley had none of his second year scholars to select from. They'd, instead, been involved in a training game earlier and that meant we started the game with six first year scholars, four under-16 players and striker Khuis Metz from the under-15s.

It was my first opportunity to see Metz as it was Callum Richardson, the Australian who was playing his second game since finally receiving international clearance.

The game hadn't been going as long as the abandoned fixture when Accrington took the lead, the forward converting from close range after a ball in from the right, and for a while it looked as though we might have a difficult game on our hands.

Just around the quarter of an hour mark we equalised via an excellent finish from Nathan Lowe, who impressed again in midfield, and ten minutes after that we'd taken a 3-1 lead. Jamie Frost, another to have a really good game, curled a ball home after coming in from the right to put us in front and Metz then got his third goal in the last four games. He got onto a long clearance and dud really well to lob the goalkeeper from a few yards outside the box.

It was 3-1 at half time but the second half started in similar fashion to the first half with Accrington again finding the net. It led to them having a little spell but it was soon Burnley back on top.

We put them under some pressure. We had a couple of efforts cleared off the line before Lowe won a penalty. I thought it was a bit soft but the referee, who I felt showed a great attitude throughout the game, had no hesitation. Lowe stepped up to drill it into the bottom corner to the goalkeeper's left.

With ten minutes to go, and the game all but won, Pash made three changes and one of them, Jake Hargreaves, another I was seeing play for the first time, played in Frost who joined Lowe in scoring a brace.

It's Preston at home next this Saturday. It will be a tougher game but I expect Pash will have a more experienced squad to select from.

The team today was: Callum Jakovlevs, Cameron Dummigan, Callum Richardson, Alex Whitmore, Waqas Azam (Andy Nugent 80), Jamie Frost, Andreas Bianga (Luke Daly 80), Nathan Lowe, Brad Jackson (Jake Hargreaves 80), Lewis Nuttall, Khius Metz.