SCOTLAND U21S
believes the introduction of Colt teams to senior football and the return of reserves will help his top kids.
He said: “I watched a lot of them in the Irn-Bru Cup last year and I know for a fact they were given a shock.
“They’d all have been thinking they were close, that they’re better.
“And when they lost to those League One and Two teams in the manner they did – a couple even lost to Highland League teams – that realisation of how far they still have to go to get into their first teams where a manager has to trust them can only have helped.
“Everything that goes with firstteam football – the physicality, the speed of the game, dealing with setpieces offensively and defensively – logic dictates that’s what the best young players need. Add in the fact the reserve league is not what it was.
“Without wanting to sound like an old man, playing for the reserve team was a big thing and more about who you were playing with than against.
“Guys like Brian Rice were around me at Nottingham Forest and I came through with the likes of Ian Woan, Gary Charles and Steve Stone. They make the same demands of you they would of guys in the first team.
“The Irn-Bru Cup showed agegroup football at that age isn’t getting the job done. I like the Colt team idea because it creates an environment where our young players are playing against men. Until you put them in a real situation you don’t find out which are sinking and which are swimming.”