Micky Mellon hails Shrewsbury's young guns
Boss Micky Mellon hailed the impact of Shrewsbury Town's academy graduates as Ethan Jones pounced from the bench to net a late winner against Birmingham.
The 18-year-old forward made his competitive bow for the club on the final day of last season.
He was one of a host of substitutes on the hour-mark in the 1-0 pre-season win against the Blues, striking an impressive late winner with five minutes to go.
Mellon was not surprised to see Jones, who is the latest graduate of the club's youth system, find the target – but also praised his fellow young colleagues.
Defender Callum Grogan, wide forward Kaiman Anderson and centre-half Dominic Smith all featured in the second period.
He said: "I was really pleased about Ethan, because we are a club that is about our youth here.
"The opportunity to get them on was good, we wanted to get them on and they all did themselves real justice.
"We've seen that the potential is there in all of them in every opportunity they get, like tonight, it won't do them any harm in their progress as young footballers.
"Of course Ethan does what he does great and scores goals. But more than that he plays with a plan before the ball came and an idea of what he wanted to do with it.
"He got himself into positions and worked very hard. The other lads came on and did equally as well so all in all a pleasing performance."
Eight of Mellon's nine new signings began against Blues – only Adam El-Abd, who is lacking in fitness, was left on the bench.
As an improvement from Saturday's 4-0 reversal to Cardiff City, the new 4-2-3-1 formation clicked into gear from the off.
There was plenty for the 1,000 strong Greenhous Meadow to get excited about.
Mellon added: "Of course, it's important that we improve our performance level as individuals.
"We've done a wee bit more structure work on Tuesday on the team shape with that group that played the first hour so it was nice to see some of that coming through."
