Joe Roberts | The boys rose to the occasion

Swansea City Under-18s coach Joe Roberts praised his side’s dominant display and emphasised the importance of building consistency after their impressive PDL Cup win over Cardiff City.

The derby-day triumph saw the Swans claim their second win of the group stage, following their 2-0 victory over Wrexham at Landore in October.

Billy Clarke opened the scoring in the first half and went on to complete his hat-trick after the break, before Callum Jones rounded off the win from the spot five minutes from time.

Roberts was delighted with his side’s dominance throughout the match, and says it is always pleasing to see the week’s hard work on the training ground reflected in a Saturday performance.

“It’s always nice to come away with three points in any game but the boys know how important these games can be so it's even better we can come away with a really top performance which will hopefully set us up for the next round of the PDL Cup.

“We were really happy with a lot of what we did in that first half, I thought our structure was effective and we created plenty of chances.” he said. 

“We said to the boys at half time that we dominated that first 45 minutes and the only thing that was the missing piece was three or four goals. On another day they go in but it was important that the message at half time was to try and repeat what we did in that first half. 

“We always want to identify where we can be better and conceding that goal at the end we were a little bit disappointed with so we will look at that and how we can improve but again how the boys applied themselves today was really impressive and then we got our reward which was a good result.

“We wanted to bounce back from the Charlton game but we know under-18s' football is very up and down, its very inconsistent and what we are trying to do is chase consistency.

“It’s days like this where the work that we did in the week comes together and the learning through the week comes together and we can put a performance out like that is really important.

“We have another game against Cardiff next week so the aim and the challenge this week will be to replicate today and if not improve on and hopefully we can have another good day for the boys next week.”