New recruit boosts his fitness
New signing Aaron Morris stepped up his match fitness by playing for an hour in a narrow defeat for Wimbledon’s development side against Portsmouth today.
Defender Morris, who made his debut as a late substitute against Torquay on Saturday just a day after signing for the Dons, played in the 2-1 away defeat against Pompey.
Jim Fenlon also gained a vital run-out for 75 minutes while he’s serving a suspension and Chris Arthur and Charlie Sheringham also played for around an hour.
Playing against a Portsmouth side containing several first-teamers, Wimbledon were 2-0 down at half-time and they needed Seb Brown to make a fine double save from a penalty to keep them in it.
However, Harry Cooksley was brought down for a penalty seven minutes from time and he picked up himself up to make no mistake from 12 yards. The Dons ran out of time in their pursuit of an equaliser, but game-time for first-teamers and promising performances from Wimbledon’s youngsters made it a useful work-out overall.
Under-21 Development Coach Shaun North said: “We struggled for the first 20 minutes, but the longer that the game wore on the better we got. Portsmouth put out a strong side and had seven players with first-team experience out there. We dominated the match after that opening spell, but we just could not put the ball in the back of the net.
“The real positive was that our first-team players had a good work-out. Aaron (picture above by Paul Willatts) is a bit rusty as he was out for a while with injury, but he got better and better as the game went on.”