Still much for the team to prove

I wrote this before the Yeovil game despite being sorely tempted to re-write afterwards, writes Walsall's Sporting Star columnist Darren Fellows.

After the result and attendance - our lowest home crowd for 13 years- I decided to leave as it was.

You wait ages for a result and then three come along all at once.

Clearly the really disappointing showing and result at Boundary Park squeezed in between the three wins highlight the fact that Hutchings and O'Connor still have much to do in terms of turning us into bona fide promotion contenders.

But, in a division unusually unbalanced with a number former Premiership names, reputations and heavyweight budgets to match the achievement of being arguably the best of the rest is pretty impressive.

Last Tuesday night's stunning win at Elland Road set a new benchmark for Hutchings' relatively-young squad and whilst they may struggle to live up to this standard on a regular basis we now know how good they can and therefore need to aspire to be.

The churlish may point to the controversial nature of the winning goal last week but given we've spent far too many Saturday and Tuesdays on the far flung motorways of England bemoaning refereeing decisions I guess we were more than overdue a bit of luck.

In his E&S report for the Leeds game Nick Mashiter made a valuable point regarding the youthful core of Hutchings side. Despite their tender age both Alex Nicholls and Troy Deeney each have in excess of 100 first team appearances.

The duo of Mark Bradley and Richard Taundry are both not too far short of the a similar mark and with Manny Smith and Netan Sansara chalking up the appearances this season the beginning of the final batch from Mick Halsall's youth production line look set to provide Hutchings and his future successors with a promising foundation from which to build upon.

It has long been my belief that the only way we could ever realistically survive at Championship level is to grow our own team – as Millwall did at the beginning of the last decade – and whilst these lads probably aren't ready to make the step up at present - who is to say that with another 12 to 18 months experience and development how good they might be?

Typically, inevitably and very predictably, on the back of such a fantastic result, we found ourselves a goal behind at home to Brentford on Saturday afternoon. A smart finish by Alex Nicholls (where on earth has he been Chris?) levelled matters and Troy Deeney's smart diving header (from a Nicholls cross) blessedly ended the latest baron and winless run at HQ.

Indeed with away results so far this season as good as anyone outside of the League One big three it is our very much home form – or more to the point the lack of it - that is the difference between us and the impressive feats of promotion chasing Colchester & Swindon plus play off hopefuls Millwall. Of all the teams in League 1 only these three sides could lay any serious claims to have achieved better than us so far in 2009-10. Their combined total of 35 home wins and only 4 defeats between the three aforementioned clubs put our five home victories and five losses into some kind of perspective.

The challenge now for Hutchings is to continue the development of his young stars, continue to intelligently use his budget and develop a system that will allow us to generate a better return from our home fixtures. If he can pull the relative rabbits out the hat then the next few seasons offer much promise.

Then again, Jeff might get another cheeky call from Coventry and in the blink of an eye we'll be back at square one again.