THE good news keeps on coming for the County academy with Regan Poole on trial at Fulham this week and our former star pupil Lee Evans getting his first call-up to the Wales senior squad.

We know that a lot of clubs are looking at Regan following his debut for us at Shrewsbury and his trial at Manchester United.

And it’s another massive opportunity for him because Fulham are a big club who have only just come out of the Premier League and they will be looking to get back there as soon as possible.

They’ve got a very good academy there and Kit Symons and Mark Pembridge are also heavily involved with the Wales set-up as well so that could help him on that front as well.

He’s obviously a very young lad so he has to think carefully about what is best for his career and you only have to look at Lee as an example of someone who has done exactly that.

Chris Coleman has called him up for the Euro 2016 qualifiers this week and I’m made up for Lee because he’s a great lad and a friend as well.

It’s brilliant for him and his family. They’ve done a good job in bringing him up and you need the kind of discipline he’s got if you’re going to get to the top.

Hopefully he shakes off his hamstring injury and he can join up with the squad because he’s doing really well at Wolves and for the under-21s too.

I played in the Championship with three different clubs and got promoted out of the Championship with Wigan but I never got a Welsh call-up.

So for him to get there so early in his career is amazing and I’ve got a lot of respect for him because he’s worked hard for it and he deserves it.

Obviously with Regan, Aaron Collins and Tom Owen-Evans all involved in the first team squad at the moment it is an exciting time for everyone connected with the academy.

It’s great for the kids and it’s good for us coaches to know that our hard work is worthwhile.

I’m really enjoying it. I’ve hardly had a day off since the summer but I’m not complaining because I know how lucky I am.

It’s not like I’m stuck in a boring office job and we are helping progress the future of the club so it is very fulfilling.

It’s not just me either – Byron Anthony, Lee Minshull, Danny Crow and Max Porter have all got involved and helped out with coaching various age groups.

I think that’s brilliant for the kids to have first team players taking time out to coach them because there’s nobody better to learn from than people who are out there doing what you want to do.

The under-18s have got RTB Ebbw Vale away on Sunday in the FAW Youth Cup and on Saturday we’ll have a practice match between the under-16s and the under-18s who won’t be playing on Sunday.

That will give me a good chance to have a look at all of them and see how they’re progressing.

I’ll be following today’s match at Oxford closely of course and I’m pretty confident we can go there and get a result against a side who have struggled so far.

We’ve got to go there and turn the screw and they’d be looking at it exactly the same way if the tables were turned.

If we were struggling they’d be looking to keep us down there and that’s how we’ve got to look at it.

I’d rather be playing but I’m enjoying watching us at the moment.

We’ve really set out our style of play and we’re playing a lot better football than we were last season.

We’re heading in the right direction and as long as we keep progressing we’ll be happy.

And the good news is that my injury is nowhere near as bad as I thought initially – it looks like it was just a spasm in the hamstring rather than a tear.

I’m running on it and if I can do the same run again on Monday without any pain then I’m hoping I’ll be able to join in training again on Monday or Tuesday.