Matt Jarvis has moved a step closer to a first-team return following an encouraging 90 minutes for Norwich City Under-23s.
The former Wolves and West Ham winger is yet to feature for the Canaries first team this season due to a knee injury. The 30-year-old played his third game in a fortnight yesterday though, completing a full match for the first time, as City's development squad were beaten 3-1 by Blackburn at Colney.
'He's a great role model,' U23s coach Dmitri Halajko said. 'He's been with us three games and really helped the lads, talked to them.
'You can see his effort, his commitment, his communication, so we can only learn from him and he gets a little bit more out of our players.'
Jarvis missed a chance when one-on-one with the Rovers keeper in the first half but picked out striker Carlton Morris with crosses three times in the second half, two of which the 21-year-old nodded wide and the other of which was headed against the bar.
The 2013 FA Youth Cup winner did win and score the penalty which brought the young Canaries level early in the second half, scoring his seventh of the season at U23 level, but couldn't find the winner.
'Carlton's done well for us at this level, every time he plays for us he causes the other team real problems,' Halajko continued.
'He can run in behind and he can hold it up, which is quite rare for a striker so he's doing really well or us and hopefully he can push on to first-team football somewhere soon.'
The defeat saw Rovers move above City in Division Two of Premier League Two, with Halajko's side heading into their Christmas break in 10th place with Middlesbrough and Stoke the only teams below them in the table.
'In the second half I thought we did better, we were disappointed with our first half performance, probably one of our poorer 45 minutes of the season,' Halajko added. 'So we had a long, hard look at ourselves at half-time and came out and pretty much dominated the second half, got our goal and missed two or three really crucial chances, which then cost us in the end.'
The U23s are scheduled to return to action at West Ham in a league game on Monday, January 9 (7pm).
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