Ash Foyle is pleased his U17 side will have a national stage to showcase their ability in the Floodlit Cup final.
A Bailey Adamson hat-trick fired the young Imps to a 3-1 in the semi-final against Bolton Wanderers at the LNER Stadium on Wednesday evening, and Foyle was particularly pleased by the character within the group after the visitors pulled level.
He said: “I’m really pleased for the lads and I’m happy they get to put themselves on a stage again where they can be challenged and tested, and we can see what they’re made of.
“It wasn’t necessarily our greatest performance but in itself, I think that becomes a pleasing aspect that we know we were capable of more, but still managed to find a way to win the game.
“Bolton had some good players and caused us problems, but I thought our lads reacted really well to going level.
"We’ve sometimes suffered when the pressure has been on, but we managed to dig in, take the game back to them and found a way to get the goals which put us through.”
Foyle was also pleased with the fast start his side made, with Adamson’s opening goal coming inside the first minute.
He added: “You never expect to score with so few seconds on the clock, but we knew we wanted to be explosive out of the traps and find ways to hurt them quickly.
“It’s a results-based game so I thought we did very well to get our noses in front and even when the game changed, I’m happy with the way we showed our character to get back in front.
“I’m very pleased for Bailey Adamson, he is very capable but sometimes we don’t always see that. We saw snippets of what he can do, but he still could have scored more.
"He’s not hit his ceiling yet and there is still plenty for him to work on, so that is an exciting place to be.”
The young Imps will face either Luton Town or Swindon Town in the final during the first week of May.
