Rory Delap heaped praise upon his and Justin Walker’s side who rose to a 3-1 victory over Newcastle United in the Under-18s third game in the space of a week.
After facing Stoke City, West Bromwich Albion and Newcastle United in the space of eight days in Premier League – North, the young Rams side have picked up four points.
Against the Magpies striker Morgan Whittaker netted a first-half penalty and a second-half brace to secure all three points at the Training Centre in partnership with the University of Derby.
Whittaker was awarded the penalty midway through the half after he was brought down just inside the area, he then stepped up and duly delivered.
Then two goals in two minutes during the second-half with Jayden Mitchell-Lawson twice playing provider for Whittaker to bag a hat-trick and the three points.
With 20 minutes to go Sam Joyce clawed a goal back for United but it wasn’t enough to halt Derby from winning.
“We’re really pleased with the performance,” Delap told dcfc.co.uk.
“That’s three games they’ve had in a week, which doesn’t happen often, but I thought their energy and enthusiasm was right up there again.
“They’ve covered a big amount of distance in terms of physicality but they’ve added that bit of quality that was a little bit missing on Tuesday against West Brom and they got the rewards from that in the three goals”.
Due to weather conditions earlier in the season leading to postponements, the Under-18s have faced a fixture backlog which will see them play five games in 14 days. Delap see’s it as a learning experience for his side.
He added: “It’s good on all levels really because you can see what they’re about mentally, when they have to dig deep.
"Physically where they are, the question is can they handle it and are they robust enough to send to the first team, which could be this year or next year or some of them even two or three years down the line?
“The first team are playing regular Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday, Tuesday and it’s good for them to have an experience of that.
“Training is cut back in those periods because we’ve got to be careful that we don’t over train them so some of the information might have to be done in the classroom.
Delap continued: “But that is what the first team do, they do a lot of video work when they’ve got a three-match week so it’s taking information on board when you’re not on a training pitch and it’s useful to see where they’re at in terms of that so it’s a positive all round.”
Words: Andrew Haines
