YORK City are hoping skipper Joe Tait will recover from a hamstring problem in time for next weekend’s National League North trip to Southport.

Tait was substituted in the first half of this afternoon’s 3-0 FA Cup third qualifying round home victory over St Ives Town, with Russ Penn replacing him and Josh Law moving back into defence after starting the game as a midfielder.

A second Jake Wright goal in as many games had earlier given the hosts a ninth-minute lead, while Jordan Burrow bagged a second-half brace to put the tie to bed.

On the prognosis regarding Tait, City caretaker boss Sam Collins said: “I think it was more tightness in his hamstring than anything else, but we’ll need to assess it. We’ve got good options though and I thought Russ Penn did really well when he came on.”

Teenage debutant Nathan Dyer, meanwhile, escaped serious injury when visiting defender Sam Cartwright jumped into a cautioned challenge that saw the youth-team graduate hobble off, meaning Collins’ team played out the closing stages with ten men, having made all three substitutes.

Dyer, 17, played in midfield for City’s junior side last term, having previously been on the academy books at Leeds United, but was selected at right-wing back for his first-team debut.

Explaining that decision and hailing a promising first senior outing, Collins pointed out: “I changed his position to right back when I first started working with him with the youth team. He’s got a good delivery on him and one of his biggest strengths is he likes to go forward, so the wing-back system gives him licence to do that.

“He’s comfortable on the ball too, having been a midfielder, but I just saw something different in him maybe to what other people have done. He’s desperate to be a footballer and he’s been training with us for about three weeks as we break him into the first-team environment. All the senior players have been really impressed with him, so we thought this game was a good opportunity to play him.

“The players gave him a round of applause afterwards and I wasn’t surprised by how well he did, because he can play and he has a brilliant attitude for a young lad. He was a bit lucky, though, not to get injured badly with the tackle and he’ll need to learn from that because, if you dangle your leg out like that, you can cause yourself a bad injury.”

Dyer started in place of Kallum Griffiths who, as one of two outfield players along with Tait to have kicked off every game this term, was rested completely from the squad, with Collins reasoning: “I just thought he’s had a lot of games and being full-time is still new to him.

“He’s been training every day and has done great in the games, but we’ve got such a strong squad and I don’t want to burn people out, so I felt it was the right time to give him a breather. He’ll get a second wind now and it gave us the chance to give a young player his debut with a lot of experienced players around him.”

Burrow, meanwhile, was replaced just before the hour mark to avoid possible fatigue, despite being upset at missing out on the chance of a hat-trick.

“Jordan got two really good goals, but I had already decided we were going to take him off before he got his second and he gave me a dirty look and was fuming a bit when he was substituted,” Collins smiled. “But we were just thinking about the team and the bigger picture by trying to manage the players and the game.

“Jordan had played on Tuesday as well, so we want to keep him fresh and we got Alex Kempster on the pitch to give him some game time. I’m delighted with Jordan though.

“If you play good balls into him, he’s good with his back to goal and now he’s getting goals as well, so I think we’ve got a player on our hands.”

Delivering his match verdict, Collins admitted that the performance improved after the interval, adding: “I said to the players at half-time that we were giving too many daft free kicks away, which gave them the chance to put balls in the box and put us under pressure.

“We’re getting better and better on the ball, but there are more sides to the game than that and we’ve also got to defend set-plays well, because they can win or lose you matches. Our decision making could have been better at times, but the more the game went on the better we got and I thought we played some excellent football in the second half.

“We were a bit more patient with our defending too and, sometimes, you’re doing your job if you just force the opposition to pass backwards.”

Collins also praised out-of-favour defender Tom Allan for his professionalism, despite being left out of a third consecutive matchday squad, even though seven substitutes can be selected for FA Cup ties.

“We have a big squad and I understand some of our older and more senior players will be upset at times but, on Tuesday night, he wasn’t in the squad and I gave him the option not to come with us to Nuneaton, but he still travelled and that is excellent,” Collins declared. “It says a lot about him as a person.” National League teams will now enter the competition for Monday’s fourth qualifying round draw, which will take place on the talkSPORT 2 radio station at 12noon, with Collins hoping for a home contest against the club he also managed three times on a caretaker basis.

“Hartlepool at home would be a good one from a selfish point of view, but they’d also bring a big following as well, which would be great for revenue, and I think it would be a really, good game,” he argued.