Alex Rutter (Top left) ahead of Swansea’s FAW Youth Cup triump over TNS (Photo Credit: Swansea City AFC)
Poole Town have a new signing – drafting in former Swansea and Southampton youth goalkeeper Alex Rutter due to the absence of Mark Childs.
Childs, who himself initially joined Poole as a one-off stand-in for Luke Cairney, will miss Saturday’s trip to Swindon Supermarine due to work commitments.
Killick labelled the task of finding a brief replacement a “nightmare scenario”, before further detailing to All Poole Aren’t We: “Mark Childs flagged up a while ago that there was an issue, and that he might be looking to have not be at a game because of a work opportunity.
“If it was an outfield player, you’d sort of just deal with it. But, it being a goalkeeper it has huge significance.
“He sort of agonised over it, because he doesn’t want to be letting us down, but it’s a very big opportunity, and in the end sometimes it’s the old story that your football career is relatively short, he had to do the right thing by him and I’ve got absolutely no sort of criticism of that.
“But it’s meant we’re going to be without him and we’ve had to register another goalkeeper.”
Rutter, 19 years old, started off his career in the youth system at Southampton, before swapping the South Coast of England for the South Coast of Wales.
A FAW Youth Cup winner during his time with the Swans, Rutter was released by the Welsh club this summer.
Whilst Rutter has only signed initially as one-game cover, Killick would not rule out a potential future for the goalkeeper at the club.
“At the moment he is just helping us out on Saturday,” continued Killick.
“I wouldn’t rule out him staying beyond that, but initially we had to get someone in on Saturday.
“I felt we had to bring someone in. Alex has been kind enough to step in. It’s a bit of a nightmare scenario.
“If you’ve got an injury or problem with your goalkeeper, you can probably bring someone in for a month, or whatever.
“That can be hard, but it’s certainly doable in terms of pro clubs and getting someone on loan.
“When you’re literally – or initially – doing it for one game, it really does limit what you can do. I feel quite fortunate that we were able to get Alex in on that basis, and I’m hoping he can do a good job for us.”
Since signing permanently in the summer of 2020, Childs had only missed one game – the recent League Cup game against Wimborne, where Childs was rested to allow youngster Will Butler to shine.
Highly rated by Killick and the Poole coaching staff, Dolphins’ boss revealed that he thought chucking the youngster in at the deep end would have done more harm than good.
“We feel young Will Butler is a really good prospect, but it would probably have been a bit of a big ask to have thrown him in, and put him under an awful lot of pressure in a game like that.”
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