Academy Lead Coach Alex Cross praised his young Pools side following an impressive victory over Sunderland RCA in the Durham Challenge Cup.

Cross highlighted the character shown by his players and believes there is “more to come” from his squad after strong back-to-back performances.

Cross added: “I think our first half against Sunderland RCA was excellent, but the second half could have been better.

“We managed the game really well,” he said. “We blew them away in the first half by scoring three well-worked goals and establishing what areas we could get at them.

“Kian’s (Foreman) goal was a wonder goal, and we’ve seen that happen a few times now,” he confirmed.

“We explained that when we turned the ball over, we needed to drive at them through the middle of the pitch and leave space out wide – which he took on really well.

“The other elements we talked about were being able to press them onto their left side, and Joe’s (Aungiers) goal came from that after good work from Matty Taylor.

“The final goal sort of nailed the game for us,” he added. “The goal came from clever work from Joe, before slipping it to Zac (Niven) on the overlap and then a neat pullback led to Jake (Worth) doing his job at the back-stick.

“All three goals were positive in different ways.”

Cross believes the competitions provide valuable opportunities for his players to develop, learn from the experience and showcase their abilities against talented opposition.

“In the Everton game, we were unfortunate not to get more out of it after watching it back,” he confirmed. “We told the team going into the RCA game that the level of performance had to be maintained.

“We have such a young group, and to back our performance up against RCA right after the Everton game was a real positive for us.

“There is loads more to come from the squad,” he said. “There were players not involved in those games, and there are players that are coming back from injury, so we’re really excited to see how the group progresses this season.”