After Saturday’s game against Wycombe Wanderers, Welsh international Sam Vokes spent a few minutes with the second-year scholar to praise him on their battle during the match.

Connor O’Riordan shared the words that Vokes gave him with crewealex.net: “Vokes thought I did really well against him, as such a young player at the start of my journey. He said to keep going, keep getting games in and to work as hard as possible. That is always nice to hear especially from a player of his magnitude.

“It gives me more confidence to know I can compete against strikers like him and hold my own against them. I need to take that confidence into the next game now and try to give every striker I play against a hard time.”

He continued with: “When I first came into the team, it was difficult to get up to pace in league 1 but I think now I have had a run of games that’s helped me to find my feet and hopefully I keep playing more games.

“As a team we have got to go out there and believe that we have got what it takes to stay in this league. Take it game by game and believe we can beat whoever comes up next.”