Gary Manson praises new Wick Academy signing Harry Hennem after debut against Fraserburgh
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Wick's newest acquisition Harry Hennem will be a real asset to the team, according to Academy manager Gary Manson.
The teenager was thrown in at the deep end in Saturday's 3-0 defeat against last year's Highland League champions Fraserburgh, playing the whole 90 minutes.
"Harry was good," Manson said. "It was a bit of a baptism of fire for him, chucking him straight in as an 18-year old. He only met the boys in the morning.
"If I could, I would have liked to ease him in a bit better in maybe slightly more forgiving circumstances.
"But we chucked him straight in and he did well. You could see in flashes the quality that he's good and once he gets to know his team-mates and their strengths and weaknesses, he'll go on to be a very handy acquisition for us.
"He's only 18 but he's had experience [in the Highland League] last season so he knows what to expect when he comes up against the other teams."
Fraserburgh had lost to title rivals Buckie Thistle the previous weekend and Manson said his limited squad did well to deal with the backlash.
"Fraserburgh away is always a tough fixture, no matter when you go there," he said. "They're league champions for a reason and with them coming off the back of a defeat to one of their title rivals last week it was going to be doubly difficult.
"We've gone down there with a really limited squad as well so it was always going to be a difficult afternoon."
The Broch took the lead in the 27th minute, with Ryan Sargent knocking the ball home after a head down from Paul Campbell.
Manson said: "The first half was difficult for us, they had us penned in and Fraserburgh have quite a direct way of playing – they keep the pressure on you, they get the ball forward as quickly as they can and try and squeeze you as much as they possibly can, and they did it really well in the first half.
"But to be fair to the boys they held firm and went in at only 1-0 down at half-time, and when it's 1-0 you've always got a chance.
"We came out second half and kind of turned it around. We were well on top the first 15 minutes and created a couple of good chances and missed a really, really good chance. That was when it was still 1-0, so that could have made it 1-1 and it could have been a different story then.
"It was 3-0 and it looks like a bit of a hammering or quite a comfortable afternoon [for Fraserburgh] but certainly in the second half we gave as good as we got.
"It was just unfortunate then that with about 15 minutes to go they scored two quick-fire goals in two minutes and that killed the game for us."
Those goals came from William West on 72 minutes and Scott Barbour two minutes later, the latter a left-footed volley into the top-right corner from the edge of the box.
The Scorries boss is now hoping that with the away games at Buckie and Fraserburgh out the way, the team can push on and get some more points on the board.
He said: "That's potentially our toughest two fixtures out the way and we've got a reasonable run coming up now. It will be a busy schedule; we've got Saturday's game against Turriff, then we've got Wednesday, Saturday, Wednesday, Saturday, so it's five games in about 14 days, so it's a good chance for us to rack some wins up if we can get a decent squad together."
