Fleetwood Town’s Under 18s made it four wins in a row on Tuesday afternoon as they managed to beat Shrewsbury Town 2-0 at Poolfoot Farm.
Joe Collins opened the scoring in this one for the Cod Army in the 72nd minute, before Akiel Raffie won a free-kick, with six minutes to go, and smashed the resulting set-piece into the top right corner to secure all three points.
Both sides looked to be pacing themselves in the early stages of the game, as neither team was able to create any meaningful chances until the 22nd minute, when a Shrewsbury free-kick was lofted into the Town box, which Conor Eastham was there to collect.
Just before the half hour mark, the Shrews had a chance to break the deadlock as they took advantage of some poor passing from the back, but their effort was fired straight over the bar from close range.
Fleetwood started to grow in the game five minutes before the break and had multiple opportunities to take the lead. The first was an attacking free-kick, which was aimed towards Josh Feeney, but he was just beaten to it by the defender.
From the resulting corner kick, Town played it into the packed Shrewsbury box and Tom Hoyle’s header had to be cleared off the line.
Three minutes later, Town worked a fantastic chance through Cian Hayes as he managed to bundle his way through the opposition’s defence, but his eventual shot was straight at the goalkeeper.
Fleetwood started the second half strong and worked a chance just three minutes in as Jake Wallace stormed down the right-wing before striking the ball towards goal, forcing a save from the ‘keeper.
Two attacks soon followed for the young Cods as they pounced on a defensive error but fired wide of the goal. Then, Hayes managed to get a yard of space, but the goalkeeper was a match to his effort.
In the 72nd minute, Town finally broke the deadlock as Danny Edwards slipped Collins in, through on goal, and he wrong foots the goalkeeper and places it into the back of the net to make it 1-0.
The opening goal seemed to spark Shrewsbury into life, as they made two consecutive chances, but were knocked back down when they received a red card in the 84th minute after stopping a goal-scoring opportunity for Raffie.
This didn’t shake the midfielder as he stepped up and rifled the ball into the top-right corner of the Shrews goal, doubling Town’s lead, and secured the three points for Matthew Lawlor’s side.
Town XI: Eastham (GK), Wallace, Batch (Kearns 75’), Edwards, Hoyle, Feeney, Raffie, Takpe, Sithole (Morrison 73’), Hayes, Collins.
Subs not used: Barratt, Cragg, Patterson.