The Town Under-18s maintained their excellent start to the season with a fifth win in six matches after a 4-1 win over Oxford United at The Brache on Saturday to kick-start Youth Development Week in style.

For the second week in a row Joe Deeney’s side were 2-0 to the good inside the first quarter-of-an-hour.

The scoring began in the fifth minute when Darren Frimpong-Kwakye’s cross was half-cleared by the visitors’ defence and Dawid Gawel was on hand to tap home his 11th goal of the season from six yards.

Eight minutes later the lead was doubled when Oxford again failed to deal with a ball from Frimpong-Kwakye and Ty Lesser finished well with a left-foot strike from 18 yards.

Half-chances came and went as the Town went in search of a third goal and it wasn’t until the 58th minute that they would score again.

Lloyd Asamoah Junior’s cross deflected into the path of Lesser and he finished from 12 yards to score his second and the Hatters’ third.

Three became four on 67 minutes when the Town won a free-kick on the edge of the Oxford penalty area and Nassim El Gourja whipped in a superb low free-kick into the bottom corner giving the goalkeeper no chance.

Straight from the restart Oxford pulled one back, the Hatters defence switching off to allow the visiting striker to nip in. Having been brought down by Charlie Booth, the visitors converted the resultant penalty to make it 4-1.

Booth produced several good stops to prevent Oxford from pulling a second goal back and the Town held on to secure another victory to send them top of the early Youth Alliance table having played a game more than their rivals.

“It was an excellent performance,” Deeney said. “Considering we were missing seven key players and had a young group, mainly made up of first-years and two under-16s, it was very pleasing.

“I was happy with the lads’ intensity, pressing and the speed at which they moved the ball to create opportunities.”

Deeney’s side are next in action on Saturday when they travel to Newport County.

Town: Booth, Richards, Barnes, Evans, Asamoah Junior, Passley-James, El Gourja, Frimpong-Kwakye, Lesser, Gawel, Hincapie-Alfonso.

Subs: Swain, Shepherd, Knote-Reed, Burton-Green, Sharp.