IT’S been a bit of an up and down week for me in my dual roles as player and youth development coach.

I’m over the moon with the progress of the youngsters with Regan Poole and Aaron Morris both making their first team debuts.

But it has also been a frustrating week for me as a player as I finally got my chance against Swindon on Tuesday and was forced off with a hamstring injury after only ten minutes.

I was very sore on Wednesday and fearing the worst but I’ve had a scan on it and it looks as if I’ll only be ruled out for around three to four weeks at most and hopefully not even that long.

That’s obviously a setback but it could have been a lot worse so I’m looking on the bright side.

It was a strange moment when I came off against Swindon because my replacement was 17-year-old Aaron.

I was gutted from a personal point of view but really pleased for him to get a taste of action with the first team.

I thought he did pretty well against a very good League One side until he too was forced off with concussion at the break after being smashed in the face by a fiercely struck free-kick.

The gaffer asked him at half-time why he hadn’t ducked and he admitted that he’d had his eyes shut.

He’s a lovely lad but he committed a bit of a schoolboy error there and I think he’ll be keeping his eyes wide open on the pitch at all times from now on.

There has been a lot said and written about 16-year-old Regan Poole this week and rightly so after a fantastic debut at Shrewsbury last Saturday and another good performance on Tuesday.

And we also had Tom Owen-Evans on the bench against Swindon as well so it’s been a very good week for everyone connected with the club’s academy.

Danny Elliott and Steve Davies have also got their A Youth Licence coaching badges this week and I made up for them as well.

It’s a tough course, though not as tough as the senior one that I’m doing, and it’s another sign that we’re progressing as a club in what we offer our youngsters.

I talked last week about the process of earning category four status and hopefully we should get a report back on that soon and we can move onto the next level.

Like a lot of clubs in League Two we don’t have much money to spend and what we do have has to mainly go to the first team so we cut our cloth accordingly.

But I think we are making strides and that is shown by the rapid progress of Regan, Aaron and Tom.

I’ve helped set up a joint fundraising event for December 13 at Rodney Parade, which will help out Newport Corries as well as the County academy.

I pulled a few strings to get my old mate Jimmy Bullard down as the guest speaker and anyone who fancies a great night out can contact me via the club or Nicky Morgan at the Corries on 07816 901985.

The gentlemen’s evening follows our home match against Stevenage and hopefully by then we’ll be well up the table because we’ve shown great form in the past few weeks.

After two very good draws at Tranmere and Shrewsbury if we can beat Wimbledon this afternoon we’ll be flying.

I’m hoping for a double-header as the under-18s take on Bournemouth at 11am and hopefully they will be inspired by the progress of their teammates and grab a win to help me forget about my injury.