Mick Halsall hails Scott Dann

Scott Dann will present a formidable barrier for Wolves to break down tomorrow - and watching will be the - Molineux man who set him on the road to the Premier League.

The 23-year-old one-time Walsall defender has established a rock-like central defensive partnership with Roger Johnson which is going to take some breaching in the derby against Birmingham City.

And no-one will scrutinise the contest more keenly than Wolves' assistant academy boss Mick Halsall, the former head of youth at Walsall who set Dann's career into motion following a chance phone-call seven years ago.

Halsall was then the key figure behind the scenes at Walsall where his talent-spotting skills had helped identify and then develop a stream of teenage talent destined for first team football with the Saddlers.

And Dann's fellow Liverpudlian remembers vividly the day he first clocked the 16-year-old centre half in action.

"We were looking for someone in Scotty's age group for the following season and a friend of mine in Liverpool suggested we should take a look at Scotty in a trial match coming up," Halsall recalled.

"He hadn't been with anyone else; in fact, I think he had just played a couple of district games up there at most. So we brought him down, sat there and watched the game and I just felt he had attributes which we could develop.

"I know he's a lean athlete now but he didn't have that physique then — but he did have ability on the ball, with both feet, strength in the air and was quite loud on the pitch for a young lad. He was organising people around him.

"He wasn't the quickest on the turn but you could see there was a talent there which needed to be nurtured. I suppose we took him on a gamble really."

It paid off for Halsall, Walsall and most of all Dann. Although not before Halsall, who would spend hours working with his protege in the foundation years, intervened crucially on a further occasion.

Former Saddlers player-manager Paul Merson famously doubted Dann's capabilities and recommended cutting him from the club as the raw teenager was dispatched to Denmark and local non-League outfits Redditch and Hednesford to find him game time.

And when Merson left to be replaced by Richard Money, the key moment came when the new Saddlers boss assembled his staff to discuss which players would be retained. Dann was still perplexing the Saddlers staff.

"I recommended only giving him a three-month contract," said Halsall. "Keep Scotty, but just on three months I told them. I thought that would be best for him.

"He needed a little bit of a shake-up, I felt. I knew there was a player there but this might push him on. And to be fair to the lad, he went away that summer, got himself super fit, worked in the gym, worked brilliantly pre-season and was absolutely fantastic when he returned.

"He got into the first team and never really looked back after that. I gave him plenty of rollickings along the way and we had to do massive amount of work on his mobility.

"But I have always felt, probably from the first time we saw him play, that he had this great football brain and could be a player at a higher level."

After less than 60 appearances for Walsall, Dann would be on his way first to Coventry and then Blues while breaking into the England Under-21 squad in the process.

Famously — or infamously — he was snatched from Wolves' grasp a couple of summers ago. Chief executive Jez Moxey thought Dann was about to sign on at Molineux in preference to a deal at St Andrew's only for Blues to come back and 'gazump' their neighbours.

The £4m deal was a long way from the days when Dann's future was still under doubt but Halsall's instincts were always telling him the young defender had that kind of capability.

He added: "I was so convinced that while Scotty's future at Walsall was on the line, I even rang up a couple of clubs and said 'Look, if they decide to let him go, get him in; he''s got something.'

"And he can go higher still, I'm sure. Top central defenders don't really reach that level until they're 25/26 and the more he learns at the level he is now, the better he will become.

"It will be interesting to see how far he goes. I notice that he is getting a shout now for senior England honours and rightly so.

"He is a fantastic lad — great character, great in the dressing room. And he is an inspiration to all kids out there about what can be achieved when you've got that desire and if you believe in yourself.

"To bring in Scotty as we did, on a whim really, and to see what he has achieved so far is what the job is all about really. I don't think there's any I've worked with doing this job who I would put above him."