Wales of a Time

ARGYLE youngster Luke Jephcott will shortly be embarking on the latest in a series of trips away with the Wales Under-19 squad, as they aim to qualify from their UEFA Elite group, which also contains Spain, hosts Holland and Slovenia.

The 18 year-old has flirted with Derek Adams’ first-team in his debut season as a professional at Home Park, making his Argyle bow in a 3-2 home defeat to Burton Albion in October last year. The forward has 10 appearances to his name so far, three of those were starts against Rochdale, Accrington and Chelsea Under-21s in the Checkatrade Trophy

He also has 10 appearances for his country, in a role reversal in comparison, eight starts and two from the bench. He can’t wait to get going again but Luke and his Welsh team-mates nearly did not get the chance.

“It came down to the last game for us to qualify and the result in the other game was going against us,” said Luke.

“We knew we had to get a result in the last couple of minutes and ,thankfully, we managed to do that, so it was a good feeling to qualify. Someone in the crowd was updating us on the bench, telling us the score, so we obviously relayed that to the pitch.”

The Welsh take on Holland in the first game on Wednesday. Three days later, Spain are the opponents and then, they play their final game on March 26 against Slovenia to round off the camp before heading home the following day. Luke, however, is not worried by a hectic schedule.

He said: “It’s nothing that we are not used to because we always have games in a short space of time when we go away with Wales. It will be a good test but this is where we find out how good we are. Hopefully, we get some good results and qualify. We just want to get out there and try to qualify, so we have to give ourselves the best chance. “

On his return from Holland, Jeph hopes he can push his way into Derek Adams plans between now and the end of the season but admits he did not expect to be involved as much as he has been.

“I’m quite surprised how it’s gone,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting to get this much time with the first-team. When I come back, hopefully I can get into the first-team, get more minutes on the pitch and be around the first-team more.“

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