Roy Keane’s decision to protect what fit first teamers we have left, paid off when a youthful Sunderland side outplayed and beat an experienced Wigan Athletic side 1-0 at Eppleton Colliery Welfare’s ground.

Nathan Luscombe justified his selection ahead of the more experienced, but out of form Billy Dennehy, by doing what Sunderland do best currently, making you sweat, but pulling a late goal out of the bag.

Robbie Weir was the winner of this week’s armband merry-go-round and played in his favoured central midfield position partnering the ever impressive Jack Colback.

The lads kicked off but it was the visitors who found their rhythm first and Nigerian International Julius Aghahowa should have put them into the lead as early as the sixth minute but hit his ferocious shot just wide of Trevor Carson’s left-hand post, leaving the spectators behind diving for cover.

Within minutes the impressive Salomon Olembe whipped in a great ball from wide on the left but both Aghahowa and Tomasz Kupisz failed to make the faintest of touches required to divert the ball into the net.

From that juncture, the Lads grabbed the match by the scruff of the neck and whilst it may be somewhat of an exaggeration to suggest it was like watching Real Madrid, the clever interplay, give and go’s and triangular play particularly of Waghorn, Dowson, Colback and most all Henderson was a joy to watch.

The Lads’ best chance of the first half came after just such a move when Waghorn, Henderson and Dowson combined well but former smog man Carlo Nash produced a stunning save, tipping Waghorn’s shot over the bar. From the resultant corner, the ball broke out of the box to Colback and his stinging shot went marginally over the bar.

Youngster Henderson continued to torment his equally young marker, Kris King, drifting in and out of the right side of midfield and repeatedly slotted superbly weighted passes in behind a very flat, very static Wigan back four that was poorly marshalled somewhat surprisingly by the experienced Fitz Hall.

Just before the half hour mark Robbie Weir miscued the first of a series of efforts where his good approach play and positioning were badly let down by poor execution.

Martyn Waghorn then missed two good opportunities to open the scoring, firstly shooting past the post after he, Henderson and Dowson had combined superbly and then minutes later after a good inswinging ball by the impressive Michael Kay.

Half Time: 0-0

Such was Henderson’s tormenting of left back King, Wigan replaced the youngster with forward Craig Mahon and dropped Olembe back in to the left back role to try to contain him. The ploy worked well keeping Henderson quiet for the first part of the second period and whilst Henderson was quiet the whole team struggled to carve out quite as many good chances as they had in the first period. However, Olembe’s tracking of Henderson and Wigan’s ploy of doubling up on Henderson allowed youngster Nathan Luscombe to get a toe hold in the game on the opposite side of the pitch and as the second period wore on, he exerted more and more influence particularly when stretching the play right out to the left hand touch line.

The balance of the match then swung even more in favour of the lads on 65 minutes when Ryan Taylor was sent off for Wigan for a second yellow although he may look at the petulance of his team mates in the minutes leading up to his dismissal and feel that he ended up paying the cumulative cost of their poor discipline.

A minute after the Latics were reduced to ten men, Robbie Weir did ‘a Healy’ and contrived to miss an open goal after a ‘Nash hash’ saw the Wigan keeper drop a long punt forward at the captain’s feet. Just five minutes later, Weir missed again when it was easier to hit the target from ten yards.

The break through finally came five minutes from time when Luscombe sent Waghorn tearing away down the left and young Nath managed to both connect with Waghorn’s deep cross and evade the on rushing Dowson to stroke the ball into the net for a deserved winner.

Whilst the second half wasn’t quite the Champagne footie that the first half had been in spells, such an inexperienced side should feel rightly proud of outplaying a vastly more experienced Wigan side boasting the ability of Carlo Nash, Ryan Taylor, Fitz Hall, Julius Aghahowa and Salomon Olembe amongst others and fully deserved their win.

Full Time: Sunderland Reserves 1 v 0 Wigan Athletic Reserves

Sunderland: Carson, Kay, Liddle, Colback, Donoghue, Hartley, Henderson, Weir, Dowson, Waghorn, Luscombe. Subs unused: Dennehy, Hunter, Richardson., Cook, Chandler

Man of the Match: Henderson for a superb first half display not just creatively but for tracking back, closing down play and good communication.

Attendance: 847

Dov