Very unusually, the subject of Cardiff City’s Academy came up in Neil Warnock’s pre match press conference yesterday when he was asked if there were any youngsters coming through who might be breaking into the first team any time soon.

Regular readers will know that I do go on a bit about the almost complete absence of any signs of progress for our youngsters in terms of first team football for getting on for a decade now, so I was a bit surprised by our manager’s reply that “we’ve got a little gem” coming through.

Mr Warnock didn’t reveal who this gem is, but did say he almost picked him in the squad for Tuesday’s League Cup fiasco (whoever it is can count himself lucky he wasn’t involved!).

The impression I got when I watched the press conference on the club website was that if someone was going to be selected from outside the twenty five man Premier League squad he would come from the Under 18s, rather than a young player on his first pro contract from the Under 23s.

Our manager talked of one or two who are decent and of a “midfield lad” who he liked, but, again, he wasn’t going to elaborate because, he said to the assorted media hacks with a smile “you lads will knock him down”.

So, who is this little gem then? The use of the word “little” brings to mind the diminutive James Waite who played for the first half of the first team friendly at Rotherham a few weeks ago, but he is too old for the Under 18s now and, anyway, he has been missing from recent Under 23 matches, presumably with an injury.

All I’ll add on this subject for now is that, having watched the Under 18s take their 100 per cent winning record to four games this lunchtime with a 3-1 win over Hull at Leckwith, if Sion Spence isn’t the player Neil Warnock was referring to, we have two, not one, little gems among our youngsters.

I knew I was pushing my luck when I decided to travel by train to today’s game because I was getting one which left Treherbert less than an hour and a quarter before kick off and so was left with just four minutes between getting off at Radyr and getting on the City Line train for Ninian Park. Needless to say, when I reached Radyr, the Ninian Park train had left a few minutes earlier, so I stayed on to Queen Street to catch a City Line train coming from Coryton.

I was still at Queen Street as the match kicked off, so was quite pleased to get to the ground with just a quarter of an hour played. City were already a goal up and virtually the first thing I saw, was Spence taking the ball with his back to goal, turning and flicking it beyond an opponent in one move before striking  a low shot into the corner of the net from twenty five yards – I can remember thinking that I might as well head back to the station and get on the next train home because I wouldn’t see anything better than that in the next hour and a bit, but it turns out that I probably did!

With City top of the South section of the Under-18 League 2 with three wins from three and Hull bottom of the North league without a point from their three matches, this seemed like a home banker beforehand and with us also not having conceded a goal yet, it was, perhaps, understandable that the team became a little sloppy in possession at times after that as they struggled to shake a dogged Hull side off.

I should say though that the sloppiness I mentioned did not apply to Sion Spence – you know in tennis when at the beginning of a new set they show a stack of stats relating to the previous one which includes the category “unforced errors”, well, I would say Spence made no more than one unforced error in the seventy five minutes I watched, his passing was crisp and accurate throughout and Hull never came to terms with him.

I see Peter Whittingham has just been released by Blackburn. This is sad because it surely signals the beginning of the end of his career in the game. Whitts in his pomp was a player who I always felt I could trust as I watched, I could trust him to score penalties (even though he missed four for us as it turned out) and I could trust him to play the right pass at the right time, well it was like that with Spence today – albeit at a lower level of the game of course.

An example of what I mean came when Spence picked the ball up thirty yards from the City goal with space to run into. I immediately thought “Hull are in trouble here” and so they were, because the pass the City number ten played, while not looking spectacular, was perfectly positioned and paced for Isaak Davies to run onto. Davies, who is some prospect when you think that, at sixteen, he is two years younger than many he is facing this season, beat his man, as he usually does when he’s got them faced up like the defender trying to stop him was and the only surprise was that the resultant side footer from the edge of the area flew a foot wide of the post.

Maybe I’m being a bit harsh when I say City got careless, because, although Hull had quite a bit of the ball and pressed forward consistently for the rest of the first half, keeper George Ratcliffe remained untroubled and all of the meaningful goalmouth action was still happening up the other end of the pitch.

For example, defender Ryan Reynolds was only just over with an effort from a Spence free kick and visiting keeper Robson made a fine save to deny centre forward Dan Griffiths after a slick counter attack.

A couple of goals to the good, it was still pretty comfortable after the break for City, until the moment that I mentioned earlier which may have beaten Spence’s goal for quality as City conceded for the first time in something like three hundred and twenty minutes of competitive action this season. The goal came completely out of the blue as Hull’s left winger Dan Hawkins arrowed a precise and powerful drive beyond the helpless Ratcliffe from what seemed like thirty yards to me – no doubt those who analyse such things as part of their job will be able to find someone in the City side to blame for the goal, but this punter stood on the sidelines could only applaud an outstanding strike.

Hull now fancied their chances of getting something from a game which had looked well beyond them, but their bigger and more powerful side could only offer a physical challenge against City’s superior skills. This approach saw their centreback Greaves booked for a cynical foul on Ruben Colwill, another sixteen year old who enjoyed more success today in central midfield than he did out wide on the previous couple of occasions I saw him play, which forced the City player to be substituted.

For all of Hull’s energy and commitment though, it was still City who were playing what quality football was on show and, as usual, it was Sion Spence who was at the heart of it – Griffiths’ drive from distance flew narrowly over, Reynolds’ header from a Spence corner just wide and a lovely exchange of passes involving captain Sam Bowen left Spence free to cross low to sub Ben Margetson whose shot from around the penalty spot came back off a post.

As the match entered it’s final minutes, the priority seemed to switch from looking for the match clinching third goal to keeping possession and counting down the clock for the City. By and large, they were able to do this with few alarms, but, with seconds left, they managed to get the third goal which gave the scoreline a more realistic look given the flow of the game, as more nice passing enabled Davies to cross for Griffiths to loop his header over Robson and into the net.

So, another entertaining and encouraging win for the Under 18s and all that remained for me to do was check the club’s Academy Twitter feed for details of the opening goal – it came after just two minutes as central defender Trystan Jones nodded in a corner taken by, you’ve guessed it, Sion Spence!