Baffins Milton Rovers' young guns to get chance to shine in Wessex League Cup meeting with much-changed Infinity
Some of Baffins Milton Rovers' brightest prospects will be handed the chance to showcase their ability in the Wessex League Cup second round meeting with Infinity tomorrow night.
Manager Shaun Wilkinson is planning to include 'four or five' of the club's under-16 prospects in the match-day squad for the visit of former Paulsgrove boss Wayne Grant's division lower side.
Three under-16 players, goalkeeper Bailey Neil, Ethan Gee and Liam Brewer, all made their senior bows in the Hampshire Senior Cup win at Brockenhurst last month.
Now Wilkinson will discuss with under-16 boss Mark Robinson who to promote for the League Cup tie against Infinity.
The Baffins boss will also hand squad members who have been lacking on minutes in the opening weeks of the season their chance to stake a claim.
Wilkinson said: ‘It’s at home, it’s a Wednesday with no other games going on, it’ll be a good chance for people to come in and look at the talent we’ve got.
‘All the players who have not had as much minutes as they’d have liked will be getting a chance. We’ll be including four or five 16-year-olds as well, but we’ll also have a blend of players who are unavailable to us this weekend.
‘I think whatever team we put out at the minute, there are lads chomping at the bit to impress, there are 16-year-olds chomping at the bit to impress so we still think we’ll be strong.
‘I don’t underestimate any opposition, Infinity will be decent, obviously they’ve got a new manager to try to impress and they got a good win at the weekend.’
Grant, who guided Infinity to a 2-1 Wessex Division One win at Whitchurch on Saturday in his first official fixture in charge, also plans to shake things up at Baffins.
The former Paulsgrove boss believes it provides an opportunity for him to see what potential is within his squad.
Grant said: ‘We’re using it to have a look at a lot of players tomorrow. We’ve got to be realistic, there are some big, big teams in this (Wessex League Cup), so we’re going to field a lot of the youth team tomorrow.
‘It’ll be a lot of the lads who have come up through the ressies who haven’t had a lot of game time recently because obviously there’s no reserve side.
‘We’ve had a bit of a managers meeting, me and Lee (Jones; Infinity assistant manager), we’ve agreed Saturday is the more important so we don’t want to start risking injuries and things like that.’