A comfortable 2-0 win today for what was again a very young Swans U18 squad today, beating PD(North) opponents Barnsley.
We fielded a couple of academy debutants: 15 year old goalkeeper Tom Wright was a late change to the announced team line-up, he’s been a substitute previously; centre back Kaven Bloniarczyk played the whole 2nd half and is part of our U15 set up. We also fielded a trialist centre forward, a 17 year old from Porthcawl who I believe is Afan Lido’s Ieuan Owen. Ieuan has featured regularly for Lido’s Cymru South team this season and I’m aware was recommended to the Swans earlier in the campaign.
Line-up, which was largely 4-5-1 with one or both of Sammy Henia-Kamau or Ramon Rees-Siso occasionally joining the trialist striker up front: Tom Wright; Aidan Higgins (s – Billy Clarke 66m), Brogan Popham, Callum Deacon (captain) (s – Kaven Bloniarczyk 46m), Josh Pescatore; Cam Llewellyn, Harlan Perry, Tom Woodward, Ramon Rees-Siso (s – Kai Rhodes 90+1m), Sammy Henia-Kamau; Trialist.
Barnsley are 4th in their division and they too featured a couple of trialists.
Sammy Henai-Kamau got both goals, the first on 7 minutes after the trialist had 2 shots blocked by the keeper, the 2nd a penalty in first half added time after Brogan Popham was brought down in the Barnsley area.
Although the 2nd half was comparatively uneventful – a couple of opportunities fell Llewellyn’s and Woodward’s way – the team was highly disciplined and limited the visitors to the occasional breakaway. We rarely looked troubled.
Bloniarczyk made his debut after half-time and looked really assured both in the air and on the ground. Alongside him, Brogan Popham had possibly his best game at home at this level – powerful in the air and certain in his possession and passing. In front of them Harlan Perry collected and distributed well and also got in important challenges to quell Barnsley attacks. Although our young keeper sometimes was a little daring with some passes in front of our area, Tom Wright looked quite at ease throughout.
Billy Clarke – another U16 graduate – delivered an impressive display at right back for the last 25 minutes.
Our trialist had a tough job playing in the lone striker role. He’s not big and had to battle and find colleagues accurately with lay offs. Aside from his assist with the 1st goal, he also had a strong run and drive before half-time that resulted in the Barnsley keeper having to make a key save.
An encouraging performance on a bitterly cold day at Landore.
Barnsley’s coach was their former defender Nicky Eaden.