Hereford Academy Head Coach Steve Saunders has praised the club for its support through the takeover of the youth teams from United in the Community (UITC).
UITC said a breakdown in their relationship with the club resulted in the U12 through to the U18 sides being taken over by the club in January, but Saunders said it's resulted in first team manager Pete Beadle being in more regular contact.
Saunders said: "Ideally it would've happened preseason where we would've had more time to prepare, but it happened in January and we've done well. The club have been really supportive, and as a group of coaches I couldn't have asked for anymore of them. They've dug deep and we've managed to get two coaches in every age group which we should have.
"The pathway is there, the likes of Harry Franklin and George Hayes have gone through to the first team today, I'd like to see those boys play a bit more for the 18s but when they don't play it gives opportunities to the younger lads. They all know that because of how well Harry has done, how well George has done, they know the opportunity is there.
"With the club now fully in charge of the academy, Beads is in contact a lot more regularly and there's a real pathway there for the boys."
The Academy's under 12s side are through to the final of Junior Premier League Cup final on May 19th after beating North Somerset 2-0. For the under 18s, they bounced back from defeat in the final of the HFA Giantkillers Cup last week to beat a physical Halesowen Town in the league last night. Luke Firkin equalised almost immediately following an early goal for the visitors, with Sean Swann netting the winner in injury time.
Steve said: "The under 12s have been spectacular this season, they've reached the JPL Cup final in their first season, the under 15s look a real talented side and there's eight players there tonight competing against a really good Halesowen side who were second in the league before tonight.
"I thought the performance was spot on, obviously bitterly disappointed with the result on Wednesday with the Pegasus results, so we asked the boys for a better performance.
"We asked them to win their personal battles, be a little bit more aggressive and physical. They [Halesowen] were a big side tonight and to compete with them with the physical size of some of our boys was absolutely spot on.
"We knew that if we stuck to our guns, battled hard and won personal battles all over the pitch then we'd always create one or two chances. The right-back has popped up with a left-footed curler into the bottom corner to win it, so spot on."
Hereford tried to play some neat passing football on a tricky surface at Lads Club, and defended the pressure from Halesowen well.
Saunders added: "Everything we do we're trying to play it from the back, we started with three centre-halves and all three are capable of playing out from the back. It's in our game plan, we're not a big physical side so lumping it into the middle of the pitch isn't going to suit us.
"We always intend to play out and through the thirds, but at times we can overplay and we've learned that tonight. We've played in the right periods, done well in spells, but we've turned them when we've had to and get in behind. I think the goal resulted in a longer clip forward where the right back hasn't come back to defend as much as I perhaps would've wanted, but it's created an overload and we've scored from that position so I can't complain really."