Four more for goal happy Development team.

After the loss last week that brought their run of five consecutive victories to an end, Cardiff City’s Under 23 Development team returned to winning ways at Leckwith this lunchtime with a triumph over Watford.

I say Under 23 side mind but, in truth, City pushed that description to the limit in their selection. When the Under 23 format was brought in to replace the Under 21 one for the 2012/13 season I believe it was, the rule was that you could field an over age goalkeeper and a maximum of three over age outfield players. I’m fairly sure that has remained the rule to this day.

So, by having Alex Smithies, Junior Hoilett, Lee Tomlin and Jonny Williams in the starting eleven, City went as far as they could within the rules and then when you also factor permitted players like Mark Harris and Max Watters who are both pretty regular members of the first team squad these days, in you can see that they fielded what would be considered a very strong line up by the standards of the competition.

Saying that mind, I’ve seen plenty of “reserve” team games down the years where sides with plenty of first team players have just not done the business in terms of playing well and getting a result for the side they were representing in that match. The reasons for this are usually fully understandable in that, say, the players concerned are making their way back from injury and so are reluctant to, and probably under orders not to, stretch themselves too much. Also, although this hasn’t applied for most of the last year, there must be motivational problems for those who are used to playing in plush stadiums in front of big crowds when they are turning out in front of the proverbial three men and a dog on what are often little more than training pitches.

Therefore, anyone expecting, say, a six or seven goal win against a Watford team which although containing a Bergkamp and a Pochetino (both offspring of the Dutch and Argentinian internationals I understand), was a collection of players who fell well within the Under 23 classification I believe, were always likely to be disappointed.

In saying that, City, who scored sixteen times in those five wins I mentioned and even managed to continue with their free scoring ways while losing 5-4 to Charlton a week ago, took their goal tally to twenty four in seven with a 4-0 win which was probably a little bit better than what I was expecting when I saw the two teams.

For most of the game, Watford offered dogged defensive resistance against what at times was continuous pressure, but their cause could not have been helped by conceding a goal quickly when their plan appeared to be to frustrate City for as long as they could.

With so many attack minded players in their team, City had a bit of an unbalanced look to them with Tomlin playing very deep in midfield almost alongside Sam Bowen as the usual three at the back formation was abandoned for what was a 4-4-2. Therefore Owen Pritchard and Dan Martin were more orthodox full backs than the wing backs we’ve become used to seeing lately and it was the former, who I assume served his suspension for his sending off last week by missing the Academy team’s 2-1 loss at Charlton on Saturday, who showed up more early on.

From one sortie forward on six minutes, Pritchard fed Watters who had a really good chance, but his shot was blocked and luck favoured City as the ball bounced towards Harris stood on the far post who touched the ball in from no more than a yard or two out as Watford appealed for an offside flag that never came.

To be honest, I found the next forty minutes or so fairly boring as City dominated without ever looking very threatening. Things livened up though in the minute or two before half time as Tomlin clipped the crossbar with a lovely free kick from right on the edge of the penalty area and then Watters, receiving the ball inside his own half shortly afterwards, broke forward and took advantage of a good run by Harris which took a defender away to break into the penalty area. However, a couple of visiting players had been able to keep up with the striker and it looked as though he’d run up a blind alley until he cut back on himself, turned and then hit a left footed shot across keeper Baptiste and into the corner of the net.

The word clubs use to describe someone like Watters in the last decade or so is “project” – the striker signed from Crawley certainly has rough edges and I’m sure he’s spending a lot of time with the club’s coaches, but it seems to me that the goalscoring instinct is very much there already with him.

City continued to show the cutting edge displayed in the closing stages of the first period when the game restarted and, within a minute, Baptiste had produced a fine save to deny Harris’ side footed effort from twenty yards after City’s best move so far.

Tomlin was becoming more influential and it was from his free kick, which might just have gone in anyway, that Watters touched in his fourth goal in two games for us at this level as Watford again appealed for offside, but the replays of the goal showed that was a valid one.

A few minutes later, there was significant action up the other end of the pitch for the first time when a Watford attacker went down under a challenge from Hoilett – replays of the incident showed that the first contact by the City player may have been outside the area, but it was a close thing and the referee was probably right to point to the spot.

The commentator mentioned Smithies’ fine penalty saving record in the build up to the kick and the keeper lived up to his billing by diving to his right to hold on to Cukur’s attempt as Watford received further confirmation that it just wasn’t their day.

That feeling only grew a minute or two later as Williams kept his head in a goalmouth scramble to make it four and complete the scoring.

Harris headed just wide and was foiled again by Baptiste in the time that remained, while Smithies again denied Cukur in a one on one with the Watford striker as the game wound down to a quiet conclusion.

Tomlin made way for Ryan Kavanagh around the hour mark, but all of the other senior squad players stayed on for the full ninety minutes. In truth however, I’d be surprised to see any of them starting on Saturday when Watford’s senior team are the visitors – Watters’ eye for goal might be enough to have secured a place on the bench for him though.