Eric Kinder gave us his thoughts on the 3-1 Youth victory over Morecambe:
"Looking at the state of the pitch earlier in the morning, I could easily have called the game off, but I felt that it was in our own interest to go ahead with it.
We were missing Tom Aldred, because he had a bit of a cold, and that knocked him for six as if he was made from confetti. He's one of the biggest and supposedly strongest U18 players I have ever had, and a few sniffles have laid him low! I'm ashamed to call him a Lancastrian ... if he was from Yorkshire I would understand it, but he's supposed to be from tougher stock.
We had to send him home and put him in bed with his security blanket and teddy bears on Friday, because it was like looking at a walking experiment, and I left him out of the starting line up for the match when he complained of a headache.
Obviously Jonny Blake was with the first team, so we played the team that went up against Bury. I put Steve Swinglehurst at left back and shifted Matt Duffy to centre back, and we had Chris McDougall up front.
We went ahead after 16 minutes when Connor Tinnion played the ball in to Andy Cook. From that moment on it became an unbelievable goal. If it had been scored by Alan Shearer in his prime we'd have been talking about it for years. He brought it down on his chest, turned and then smashed it in to the roof of the net. It was as good a goal as you are ever going to see.
He's capable of making a mess of things sometimes, is Cookie, but he also has some fantastic ability in there, and he showed us that with his first goal.
He got his second on the stroke of half time when he got on to a Simon Lakeland cross. The defender misjudged it and it went throught to him, and he took one touch to set it up before pushing it underneath the keeper.
Just after that Liam Davison went clean through and had only the keeper to beat, but he hesitated and the moment was gone for him.
The game could have been out of sight by half time, if we're honest, because we dominated it and we looked strong. Chris McDougall had one disallowed for offside and I think the only person who thought the flag should be raised was the Assistant Referee. Brendan McGill was there to watch the game and he walked over after the incident and told me that Chris had been at least two yards onside, so that was frustrating.
We continued with some decent football after the break, and Chris hit the bar with a chip, Connor Tinnion had a couple of chances, and we took a real hold of it. Cookie had one disallowed for offside - another dubious decision - but he got his hat-trick anyway when he latched on to a long ball forward and buried it beyond their keeper.
We were given a reminder of what this game can do to you though when they pulled one back right on full time.
Simon Lakeland felt a bit of a pull in his thigh so I took him off, and I was able to switch a couple of others around so that I could give people a run out.
Overall it was a comfortable win for us and we are geared up for Wednesday, which is another big game for us.
That's now 16 games unbeaten for these lads, and it takes us in to the Youth Cup game with us on an incredible run. We can't take anything for granted, but we want to keep it going for as long as we can.
It's actually great for me, when we get a situation where our team captain isn't feeling well, that we can still adjust and make things happen. That says a lot about this group. We have Simon Lakeland who feels a muscle pull, and his natural replacement (James Wood) is long term injured, but we still manage to cope because John Seaton moves back there and slots right in. These lads are showing that they are very adaptable, and that's important.
Lads like Jamie Cleary and Steve Swinglehurst are coming in and playing as if they have been with us for years, and even though we have a small squad, it is a very strong one.
One thing we did make clear was that we didn't want the Youth Cup game against Crewe to get in the way. The really good sides continue to pick up results in the league, even when they have a big cup game looming. We've been guilty of suffering a bit in our league games over recent seasons when the cup games have been due, so I am pleased to see that we have put that right.
As for Andy Cook, we have spoken about him a lot. He's the kind of player who seems to score a bag full if he gets one early in the game, but he gets himself frustrated if he has to wait for the goal to come. He got his goal in this one, so we've seen an example of that again.
Like I say, if we'd had that first goal on film we'd be playing it over and over. The statistics speak for themselves with Cookie. It's his fourth hat-trick and he has 22 goals, and he is well on target to hit 25 before the Christmas break. I certainly wouldn't bet against him doing that. You may not know what you are going to get from him, but one thing you do know is that if he does manage to grab that early goal then he is going to be a real handful to deal with. Once the confidence is there he starts to believe that he can do anything, it's as if he thinks he can walk on broken glass barefoot and still not cut his feet.
If he can get that consistency even when things haven't quite gone for him, then he will be moving on to that next level."
Team - Mitchell (Gillespie 83), Lakeland (Sloan 77), Duffy, Cleary, Swinglehurst, Law, Seaton, Davison, Tinnion, McDougall, Cook (Bowman 83). Subs - Tom 'The Wuss' Aldred.
