Darren Davies pleased with Swansea City U18s’ game management

Swansea City Under-18s coach Darren Davies believes his young side will have learned a lot about game management after seeing out a 1-0 win over Queens Park Rangers in the Professional Development League.

Dan Watts’ excellent first-half free-kick was the difference and took the young Swans’ unbeaten run to six games – made up of four wins and two draws. The home side's second-half defensive performance earned them their third clean sheet in that run.

It could have been more for the Swans with efforts for Iwan Morgan, Geoff Bony and Rohan Davies all drawing excellent stops from R’s goalkeeper Harry Cant.

“I think it was a dominant performance and we played some good football,” said Darren Davies.

“We created a lot of opportunities where we potentially should have scored some more goals and the game could have been out of sight.

“But to be fair to the lads, we didn’t miss that many chances. The keeper made some very, very good saves so kudos to him.

“There are good learning moments in that game as well, because when the game is at 1-0 we now know that we can manage the game by staying on the ball, so that’s brilliant.

“In the second half, we started to tire and we managed the game well with passing football. If we think about how many really clear-cut chances they had, I’m not sure they had that many at all.

“The defence – and the rest of the team – did their defensive duty really well because we restricted them to very few opportunities.

“It was a good day for us with real positives in the way we played, the chances we created and the learning we have had.”

It took a top-corner finish by Watts to take the three points and Davies believes it was a case of ‘practice makes perfect’ with the youngster spending extra time on the training ground this week to perfect his set-pieces.

“It was a great free-kick from Dan,” he added.

“We were practicing them yesterday, and we actually lost three balls, but it was all worth it to see that one go in!

“But that’s what it’s about really. Him and Iwan were out on the training ground practicing it and then that bears fruit on a matchday.”