WORCESTER City will continue to monitor the progress of their younger players with a view to them being an integral part of next season.

In recent matches, manager Carl Heeley has been running the rule over striker Ethan Moore, who scored in last Saturday’s 3-1 victory over Hinckley United, left winger Kieron Morris, forward Danny Williams and right-back duo Jason Beardsley and Josh Smith.

With the exception of Morris, who is on loan from Walsall until the end of the season, the others are City’s players and are likely to feature in the next three games as well as in pre-season.

Heeley has long been looking to the 2013-14 campaign, when Worcester will be playing at Kidderminster Harriers, and has been impressed with the next generation.

He said: “The future of any club is the youngsters and the youth set-up. We’ve got lots of young lads with decent pedigrees and we’ve got to try and build them into the squad.

"It will be steady progress but let’s see how they do to the end of the campaign, through pre-season and hopefully they can form the basis of future squads.

“I have always said if the youngsters are good enough we’ll play them but it’s difficult to sustain week in, week out. Sometimes they have to go in the side and come back out and you have to be careful when you put them in because if you expose them too early then it can be counter-productive.”

Smith, who has been on loan at Bridgnorth in the Midland Alliance, played the entire game against Hinckley for his first appearance since coming off the bench against Stourbridge in the Worcestershire FA Senior Cup 12 months ago.

Heeley added: “He’s a central midfielder but we’ve been having a look at him in training as a right-back because he started his career there and I just think he’s more natural there.

“I have had decent reviews from Mark Clyde at Bridgnorth and he’s not let us down.”