The unseen moments of scrap that show Bailey Cadamarteri can be a real Sheffield Wednesday option

That was the impression given in 45 minutes of youthful exuberance from Sheffield Wednesday teenager Bailey Cadamarteri on Saturday afternoon, as his outing sprinkled a little positivity on a bitterly disappointing defeat to Millwall.

It's important not to get carried away with young players of course. There is no suggestion Cadamarteri's effort at S6 on the weekend was the second coming of Erling Haaland or that his are the shoulders to rest Wednesday's Championship survival hopes on. Far from it.

But there were flashes of something, that maybe Wednesday have stumbled upon a little attacking joie-de-vivre from their academy for the first time in a little while. A shot 17 minutes into his EFL career bounced awkwardly and he showed good composure and technique to force a decent save. He spun well to force a corner with a shot that went just wide. In the final moments, well, let's face it - he should have scored.

He could have easily had an assist, sliding Josh Windass in having shrugged off a couple of challenges by the left byline. He used the ball nicely. He looked physically able, even against a rough-and-tumble Millwall defence presumably born in grow bags.

For all his physical and technical attributes - his non-stop scoring touch in the under-21s hinted at those - it is perhaps in watching Cadamarteri's mannerisms that displayed the best gauge of how capable he is of making an impact on the rest of Wednesday's season. If an impression he was keen to make, he wasted no time.

His league debut was a little more than a second old when he crashed into the back of human obstacle George Saville, a 32-cap international approaching 400 league appearances, sending the Lions man off-balance.

Later in the half he used his body well to send snarling, six-foot-loads centre-half Jake Cooper to the deck and was wrongly adjudged to have fouled. He was raw in his defensive output, but he pressed and harried and put himself about. In one physical tet-a-tet, the 18-year-old appeared to throw a little verbal volley in Cooper's direction. There's a snarl to the young fella.

Wednesday have seen a great many false dawns with young players and with only 45 minutes to draw upon there is no real sight of whether Cadamarteri is the man to step into the first team and make a sustained fist of things. There's a great deal of work to be done.

But concerns he's too young, shy and retiring to be thrown minutes in a relegation bar fight? The signs are good. He's got a bit about him.