Stevenage Under-18s followed up their recent 5-1 win at Gillingham with a 4-2 victory over nine-man Luton Town on Saturday.
Despite going a goal down, Boro’s youngsters responded in style with Andronicos Georgiou, Luke Slater, Mickey Cregan and Alex Taylor all finding the back of the net.
Academy Manager Robbie O’Keefe told us, “It was a good result and a good performance. We played with a real intensity in the game and a real sense of togetherness. We went 1-0 down again, against the run of play. We do seem to be making a habit of going 1-0 down but then we showed some real resilience to get back into the game.
"Andronicos Georgiou scored a great equaliser from distance to make it 1-1. He then put Luke Slater through who showed some really neat footwork and a good finish for 2-1. Later in the half we broke quickly and Mickey Cregan got a shot on target which was punched off the line by a Luton defender. He got sent off and Mickey scored the penalty for 3-1 at half time.
"We dominated for really long periods of the second half but didn’t extend the scoreline at first. Luton broke on us and scored for 3-2 which made it a little bit nervy, but they then had another man sent off for stamping off-the-ball, which took them down to 9. In the last couple of minutes Alex Taylor then put us 4-2 up.
“There was a bit of pushing and shoving after the final whistle which saw a third man sent off for Luton. They lost their discipline but we kept ours.
"I was pleased with lots of individuals including Alex Taylor who has been in every day with us on an extended schoolboy deal. He gets on with his work and improves every day. He was at Luton from the age of 8 and got released at the very last knockings at Under-16 level, so he couldn’t have chosen a better time to score his first goal for us."
Saturday's victory made it three games unbeaten and with just one defeat in their last six games in all competitions, it's clear that Robbie's team are on the way up.
He concluded, "We’ve had two decent weeks now where we’ve played well and people are improving steadily. We’ve only lost one in five league games so we’re in form and we’ve had two really good wins. It’s just getting better and better at the moment."
That victory sees Stevenage rise to fifth in the Youth Alliance South-East Division with a trip to 8th place MK Dons up next on Saturday.
You can find the Under-18s fixtures here and the latest league table in this document.