Brown hails his fledging Swifts (From Kidderminster Shuttle)

Brown hails his fledging Swifts

10:12am Thursday 21st February 2013 in Sport

DELIGHTED Swifts boss Rod Brown hailed the youthful trio of Jamie Willetts, Matt Williams and Paul Hurrell after Tuesday night’s 4-1 win over Coleshill Town.

The Walshes Meadow outfit got back on track in the Midland Alliance after goals for Dan Polan (2) and John Griffin made sure of a comfortable win.

Brown singled out Williams, Willetts and Hurrell for praise.

Willetts had been criticised by the manager last week for an uncharaceristically lacklustre display in their loss to Boldmere St Michaels.

“I thought Jamie, Paul and Matt were superb,” said Brown.

“They are only young but they added energy and enthusiasm and it’s great to see.

“I gave Jamie some stick last week because he fell bellow his own high standards but he has responded really well.

“Matt came to the club as a centre-back but I think I’ve found him a position on the right of the defence.”

Brown was also delighted with the response of his young squad after a 45 minute clear the air session on Saturday morning.

Swifts put in a much-improved display against in-form Gornal Athletic, despite losing 2-0, and then were too strong for Coleshill in a game where they also forced an own goal.

The manager said: “We’ve only got a very young squad and what they won’t have is a lot of character, that’s what more experienced players bring.

“But I got across what I wanted from the players in terms of mentality and they responded well, “We lost to Gornal but played well in the second-half and could have got something from the game.

“If we had scored it would have been interesting to see what would have happened.

“But we took that performance into Tuesday and showed lots of passion and desire and played at a high tempo.”

Victory lifted Swifts back into second ahead of Loughborough University, who have two games in hand.

Meanwhile, midfielder Ryan Mahon’s season is over after he sustained more injuries to his medial ligaments at the weekend.

The former Evesham and Stourbridge battler has been plagued by injuries since coming to Swifts.

Brown added: “Ryan’s never really recovered from a bad injury three years ago and it is a shame because we’ve not seen the best of him here.”

Swifts face two testing home games, starting with fourth-placed Bridgnorth on Saturday (3pm ko) and leaders Stratford on Tuesday night (7.45pm ko).