Walsall through to the Midland Youth Cup Final...
Academy boss, Neil Woods, was left to marvel after watching his side blitz Boston United 6-0 to reach the Midland Youth Cup Final at The Scholars Ground.Maziar Kouhyar, Will Shorrock (2), Brendan Pooni (2) and Nathan Owen were all on the score sheet as the cup holders ran out worthy winners and set up a meeting with Basford United in the final.
Woods, who watched Kouhyar and Shorrock post goal of the season contenders, said: “We scored some excellent goals. The first two were probably the pick of them but all the way through we looked like we could score goals, our work ethic, our shape and our endeavour to maintain our standards was terrific.
“At times we were brilliant. Our attitudes from minute one to minute 94 were absolutely spot on and if I’m being honest, it’s what I’ve come to expect from this group of players.”
The Saddlers now face a hectic end to the season fighting on two fronts. Not only are they now in a cup final, but they are racing Wigan Athletic and Bury for the league title. The youngsters sit just three points behind league-leaders Wigan, level on points with Bury, and they will face both of them in their final four games.
Woods has stressed the importance of personal development throughout the season, and he is pleased to see his team doing it the ‘Walsall way’.
He said: “It’s another situation that they have to learn to deal with as players, they have to manage these situations. “We don’t know when the final is going to be yet but we’ve got some important league games and we’ve still got half a chance in that.
“Tranmere offered us a physical threat on Saturday but today there was the expectation that we should win and they’ve dealt with both of those situations and they’ve dealt with them in the correct way.
“We’ve kept the season going longer and we’ve done it playing the Walsall way. We expect a work ethic, we expect endeavour but we also expect them to play and the last two games have shown the different sides to us.”
Woods’ youngsters will have no time to bask in the glory of their latest success as they play host to Burnley on Saturday looking to extend their current unbeaten run to six matches (11am kick-off).