With striker Sam Fishburn having exploded onto the Lancaster loan scene with a brace at his new club on Tuesday night, we wondered if any of the crop of other young hopefuls could be asked to follow the same path.
“They need to play, that’s for sure,” the Carlisle boss confirmed. “I did say at the fans’ forum when one of the good questions asked of me was about being in a reserve league or not.
“We are in the reserve cup and we are in the Papa John’s. I suppose it’s on my toes as manager; I didn’t see the risk everyone else saw in changing the team going to Sheffield United.
“Because it’s important I protect what we’ve just talked about, the three games we had away, and in due course you can see that, if anything, it affected Jack Armer for example, who flagged a bit in the last 10 minutes at Swindon and Port Vale.
“It’s important we give opportunity but do provide platforms, and there always has to be reasoning behind our actions. It’s not because they’re not wanted, it’s for development, to be exposed to different factors to bridge that gap.
“I can’t wait for the day Fish scores two goals at the Warwick Road End and everybody’s shouting some Fish type song, but he’s got to work very hard to get to that point.
“You could see in our pre-season games he wasn’t going to do that at this point, but it doesn’t mean he won’t in the future. We have to remember he’s still only 17.”
