THE success that Jake Hastie has enjoyed this season shows the benefit of top flight Scottish clubs farming their academy kids out to lower league sides for experience, Alloa manager Jim Goodwin has claimed.
Hastie, who had only made three first team appearances as a substitute before the 2018/19 campaign kicked off, and was sent to Recreation Park on loan.
But the then 19-year-old flourished at the Ladbrokes Championship outfit; he featured in no fewer than 23 games for the part-time side and netted four goals.
READ MORE: Jim Goodwin is 'the finished article' and I expect him to go elsewhere, admits Alloa chairman
The winger went from strength to strength on when he returned to Fir Park - he has scored seven goals in 14 matches, earned a call-up to the Scotland Under-21 team and is poised to join Rangers.
Goodwin, who revealed that he has been inundated with phone calls from Premiership clubs as a result of the dramatic progress that Hastie made, believes it shows how dropping down a level can help kids come good.
"Young boys have to go out on loan," he said. "Playing reserve team football, in my opinion, doesn’t match up, it isn’t the same.
"We gave Jake a chance to come and play at a good level against good teams and he proved that he was more than capable of doing that.
"We are all over the moon for him. It is really important for us that the loans are successful and people can see the benefits of kids coming from academies to clubs like ourselves because it works for everybody. It is a win-win situation.
READ MORE: Jim Goodwin: Jake Hastie can star for Rangers next season - and force his way into the Scotland side
"We have been very lucky. Not many of the loans we have had in the two years I have been here haven’t been a success. It is at the stage now where instead of me phoning clubs begging them for a player they are actually phoning me and offering me their best young players. It is a really nice position for me to be in.
"It shows that clubs are recognising the work that we are doing now with young players – we giving them confidence and allowing them to make mistakes.
"That is really important for any young player, to know that they are allowed to make mistakes and have the odd bad game here and there and it isn’t the end of the world. That is what we have been able to do for them."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here