Dylan Ross: The Aberdeen starlet who has benefitted most from Dons’ pivot to loan-focused youth development?
17-year-old Aberdeen left-back Dylan Ross speaks about how his loan at Elgin City this season has improved his game - ahead of the Dons' U18s Scottish Youth Cup semi-final.
Ask the staff at Aberdeen’s Cormack Park training ground which Dons teenage starlet has taken the biggest leap forward since the club changed their approach to youth development at the start of the season, and Dylan Ross will be one of the first names out of their mouth.
Last summer, Aberdeen – in an effort to create a pathway to their first-team which “better readies young players for the rigours and expectations of playing for the club in the Premiership” and “European competition” – announced they would not be fielding a national under-19s league side.
Instead, exploiting new SFA rules around loan cooperation agreements with lower league clubs and using links to the Highland League, the Dons have sent more than 10 players aged 16, 17 and 18 out on loan this term, exposing them to “senior, competitive football at a much younger age”.
As well as turning out for their loan sides in the third, fourth and fifth-tiers, and training with both their parent and loan clubs, the young players have also been able to keep playing in the red of Aberdeen.
A Dons B team won this season’s Evening Express Aberdeenshire Cup and an under-18s side are through to the Scottish Youth Cup semi-final against Queen’s Park on Friday, February 27.
Left-back Ross, 17, was sent to League Two Elgin City alongside centre-backs Jamie Mercer and Noah McDonnell at the beginning of the campaign (though McDonnell’s loan ended in January).
Aberdeen’s ‘more physical’ Dylan Ross now a starter for League Two Elgin City
Graduating from a place on the bench, to a few substitute minutes, Ross has now started 13 of Elgin’s last 14 League Two matches, finishing all but one and also playing the entirety of Allan Hale’s team’s narrow Scottish Cup exit to Championship title-hopefuls Partick Thistle earlier this month.
Ross is in no doubt the exposure to men’s football he has gained from Aberdeen’s new loan-focused approach has improved his game – opening his eyes to what is required physically to step up from more technical academy football.
The youngster said: “It’s been good.
“Going to Elgin, it’s a much bigger change in the physicality side. It’s been tougher.”
Ross added: “I trained, but then it took me a few months to get into the team.
“The training is more physical – it’s harder, it’s a lot faster, the players are bigger, stronger.
“So it takes a while to adapt into that, but you work hard, then I think once you get used to it, you get there.
“I knew I could play. I knew I could get in the team.
“So it’s just a case of showing yourself in training, and then when you get the chance you’ve just got to perform.
“It took me a while, but I just got told: ‘Just take your time, your chance will come.’
“I think I’ve impressed Allan when I’ve been at Elgin and I’ve not been dropped from the team yet and he’s been praising me quite a lot.”
‘I’m determined to have success at Elgin’ – Aberdeen’s Ross
Elgin, who sit seventh in League Two, are fighting to rekindle their promotion play-off hopes over the remainder of the season.
Ross said: “We would like to be further up the table, but we’re still in a good position where we are.
“We’ve got games in hand still to play which can put us right back up into the playoffs.
“I’m determined to have success (this season).”
Aberdeen’s U18s now have ‘head start’ on youngsters from rival clubs
Ross does not think it is a coincidence Aberdeen’s young players, despite not playing together in academy league football, are back in contention to win the Scottish Youth Cup this term.
He believes it has come down to the physical “head start” the Dons starlets have gained out on loan, which their peers at other clubs haven’t, plus the mindset-altering experience of playing in senior games where results – rather than pretty performances – are the priority.
Ross – who says all of Aberdeen’s prospects have taken “confidence” from 20-year-old right-back Dylan Lobban’s ascension to first-team player this term – said: “Coming back here, it gives you, I would say, a head start when you play (other academy) teams, like (in) the Youth Cup semi-final.
“It gives you more physical presence that I think you can take a lot of into the game.
“You do feel a lot sharper and stronger than them, and you do have a different mindset when you go into games.
“You know a little bit more, and there’s the strength side and just how to handle yourself in games more.
“Everyone going out on loan has helped everyone a lot.”
Aberdeen’s year for Scottish Youth Cup trophy glory?
Despite aims for the rest of the campaign at their loan clubs, the Youth Cup still matters to Aberdeen’s youngsters.
Ross insists they are determined to get revenge on Queen’s Park for putting the Dons out of the competition last season and win the trophy, with Hearts or Kilmarnock lying in wait in the final.
“The Youth Cup is massive,” Ross said.
“We got to the final two years ago and were put out by the Rangers and then we got beat by Queen’s Park in the quarter-final last year.
“And I think our team has obviously been out (on loan), and I think we are a much better team than what we were last year.
“So I think we can still win it.”
[Source: Press and Journal]
