Mansfield Town under-18s return to action at RH Academy tomorrow when they face Bradford City in the Youth Alliance Cup (12pm kick-off).
All supporters are welcome to attend the game for free at the following venue: RH Academy, Woburn Lane, Mansfield, NG19 7RT.
Steve Chettle’s youngsters are set to do battle with the Bantams following a postponed fixture last Friday against the same opponents, with another game falling victim to the weather in midweek away to Hull City in the Premier League Cup.
They were last in action on 25 November as goals from Ronnie Kokkinos, Alfie King, Dan Organ and Oliver Monington found the net in an impressive 4-1 victory at home to Harrogate Town.
“We’ve had a frustrating week,” Professional phase development lead coach Steve Chettle told www.mansfieldtown.net.
“Last week was called off due to the weather. We managed to get up to Hull yesterday (Wednesday) morning for the [Premier League Cup] game to be called off half-an-hour before kick-off, so it’s been highly frustrating.”
Speaking about preparations heading into Saturday’s match, the under-18s’ professional phase development lead coach said: “We’ve trained today (Thursday) and we’ll train tomorrow ready for Bradford in the Youth Cup Alliance Cup.
“We train on the 4G most of the time, so weather dependent, we’ll either be on the grass or the 4G on Saturday. We’re used to the surface.
“Everyone has trained well this week. We’ve done a lot of shape work already this year so they [the players] know our in and out of possession work. It’ll be a revisit of that, gameday minus one, and we’ll work some more on that tomorrow.”
In team news, defenders Cormac Maher (hamstring) and Louis Bonser (ankle) are expected to be available for selection within the next fortnight.
