By Chris Slavin
Dean Parrett stepped up his recuperation by coming through 80 minutes yesterday and scoring twice in a victory for the AFC Wimbledon development squad against Swindon Town.
The Dons side triumphed 3-0 in the Central League match, which was played at Swindon Supermarine, with Parrett netting two fine goals.
With both clubs having first-team fixtures yesterday, the two teams fielded mainly young players, and coach Alan Reeves was pleased with the performance of the young Dons on a testing pitch.
Richard Pingling, who scored the other goal, set-up the opener midway through the first-half with his impressive hold-up play providing a shooting chance for Parrett, who finished well from 14 yards. The 1-0 half-time score in Wimbledon's favour was doubled in style through Parrett, who found the top corner with a fine finish after good work by Osaze Urhoghide. Pingling rounded off the scoring with another impressive goal when he cut in from the right, before finishing clinically.
Alan Reeves said the match was a step in the right direction for Dean Parrett and he was pleased with the application shown by Wimbledon's youngsters.
"Dean played just 60 minutes last week and after a chat with the staff, we wanted to play him for longer," Alan said. "The aim was to give him 90 minutes, but the pitch was heavy, so with 10 minutes left I put one of the young lads on. We know what Dean can do in possession and he loves getting forward. He has a great strike on him and he showed that yesterday.
"I said to our players beforehand that the game was not going to be pretty due to the pitch, but they have to find a way to get results in those circumstances. I told them they had to do the right things and it would pay off. We had a lot of young lads out there, including first-year Under-18s, so that was a positive. Though Swindon had a few half chances early on, Nik Tzanev did not have a save to make after the first 20 minutes. We had a bit of a makeshift team out due to the first-team playing and injuries, but the boys did well."
AFC Wimbledon: Nik Tzanev, Toby Sibbick, Reuben Collins, Paul Kalambayi, Osaze Urhoghide, Levi Shango (Great Nii Okai-Evans), Alfie Egan, Dean Parrett (Finley McNab), Tyler Burey, Richard Pingling, Tino Carpene (Jamil Awoyejo).