Livi's young stars give hope for the future

Apr 23 2009 by Eric MacKinnon, West Lothian Courier

PAUL HEGARTY reckons the future of Livingston was there for all to see in his match day squad at the weekend when he revealed half of the players were aged 20 years or below.

The Livi boss has called on the youth academy’s kid graduates after injuries robbed him of some of his ‘old heads’ like Chris Innes and Dave Mackay.

And the teenagers have shone in difficult circumstances leaving Hegarty in no doubt that the future of the club on the pitch is promising.

“Any team would miss the likes of Chris Innes, Dave Mackay, Murray Davidson, Jason Talbot and Rafaelle De Vita,” admitted Hegarty.

“But their absence has given our young players a chance and we had eight players in the match pool of 16 players who were aged 20 or younger.

“Leigh Griffiths, Andy Halliday, Chris Malone, Keaghan Jacobs, Gordon Smith, Cameron Macdonald, Darren McDowall and David Sinclair are all at that age which shows the depth in our young players.”

The youngsters impressed again at Almondvale last week despite going down by a single goal to Dundee. Hegarty admits he was disappointed to take nothing from a game they dominated.

He said: “I’m very disappointed not to have taken at least a point especially after all the effort of my players.

“I reckon, though, we deserved to win and we had the better chances.

“We switched off at the goal and I feel we were out-muscled a bit but that’s something we have to deal with better.

“Roddy McKenzie actually made a very good save to stop the initial header but that's when you are looking for a defender to pick up the scraps.

“Dundee had only two or three chances while we had more than half a dozen and we hit the post twice.”

Livingston head down the M8 to Maryhill this weekend as Hegarty attempts to lead the Lions to their first win at the home of the Jags in three seasons.

And he is under no illusions as to the difficulty of the task ahead.

He added: “The league is very tight and the majority of teams are much the same and sometimes the difference is who gets a rub of the green.

“Our players have been great and I think people may be fed up of hearing me say that but it’s the truth.

“We have a big game on Saturday against a Partick Thistle side who will be jumping for joy after seeing St Johnstone slip up.

“They have a wee glimmer of winning the league now so we will have to be at the top of our game.

“We lost 4-2 to them last time we played and there was never two goals between us that day. If we take our chances and defend a little more stoutly then we should be alright.”