Rushden & Diamonds Youth Team progressed through the Football Conference Youth Alliance League Cup on Wednesday, beating Oxford City Blues 4-0 with goals from Sean Shields, Matt Evans, Dan Easlea and Nabil Shariff.

Head of Youth Paul Driver commented "It was difficult with the wind, it was horrible, right down the middle of the pitch and that was always going to have an effect on the game. It wasn't the best performance, certainly below recent standards, but we never really got out of third gear and got through 4-0, its a cup game, so you go in a cup game to win it.

It was mainly the younger lads, Nabil and Lewis came on near the end, but was predominantly the younger ones. They were a bigger side than ours and that tends to be where our young ones struggle at present, when we're like for like we do really well, they are just coming to terms with playing against bigger opponents. Thats a real positive that we've played a physically bigger side and haven't got bullied, we played some decent football without ever really getting out of third gear.

We've got top of the table Hitchin on Wednesday, the rearranged St Albans game on Friday, then the County Cup on the Sunday, so it'll be a mix of everyone from the Under 16s through to the Under 18s across those three games, so a big week for us."

Rushden & Diamonds Youth Team's away fixture at St Albans City has been rearranged following its cancellation due to a bout of the flu doing the rounds amongst the teams. It was due to be played Friday 27th November and will now take place on Friday 4th December.

St Albans City Youth v Rushden & Diamonds Youth
Football Conference Youth Alliance - Midland Division
Friday 4th December 2009 - 1:30pm
St Albans