Derby County’s Under 18s were unable to continue their winning form on Saturday afternoon, as they fell to a 5-3 defeat at the hands of Norwich City.

In their first game of their Merit Group 2 campaign, the hosts opened the scoring with less than four minutes on the clock thanks to a close-range conversion from Kieran Higgs.On the cusp of half-time, Emersson Sambu doubled his side’s tally and immediately after the interval, Agust Hlynsson made it three from the penalty spot.With 56 minutes played, a goal from Cameron Cresswell presented the Rams with a glimmer of hope, but further goals from both Higgs and Devonte Aransibia seemed to almost assure Norwich of all three points.Cresswell again orchestrated something of a late fightback through his goal with ten minutes to go and Jahvan Davidson-Miller made it three on 84 minutes, but time ran out in the end for Justin Walker’s and Rory Delap’s side at the Canaries’ Colney Training Ground.On the back of an impressive 4-1 victory on the road against Wolves last time out, the Rams had started quite sprightly until they were dealt an early sucker punch in East Anglia as Bilal Kamal’s defence splitting pass set up Higgs to score against the run of play.The opening goal laid the platform for Norwich to go on and dominate for the next 20 minutes, but as half-time approached, it was the visitors who looked most likely to score.Jayden Bogle and Cresswell, particularly, spurred on Walker’s and Delap’s side on the attack, however, it was the final touch that appeared to let Derby down as they were unable to make their pressure count.On the cusp of half-time, Norwich punished Derby’s failure to take their chances – doubling their lead through Sambu, who found space to execute his low driven shot from the edge of the area.Following the interval, the Canaries did not make life any easier for the Rams and extended their lead to three from the penalty spot through Hlynsson following a late challenge in the area by Giann Magno.The Rams sought an immediate reaction and brought back the deficit down to two almost instantaneously through Cresswell.With the game blown wide open once again, Derby were unable to keep their hosts at bay and two further goals, courtesy of Higgs and Aransibia, allowed Norwich to run away with the contest.Despite their four-goal cushion, the Rams did their best to challenge their opponents – converting on two occasions in the final ten minutes through Cresswell and Davidson-Miller.In the end, though, it was just a little bit too late for Walker’s and Delap’s side as they fell to their first defeat of the Merit Group campaign.McCraken, O’Donnell, Catton, Sambu, Odusina, Wallis (C), Kamal, Aransibia, Fleming, Hlynsson, HiggsLomas, Dickerson, Parsons, Ekumah, OddyYates, Bogle, Mills, Magno, Rashid, Trialist, Whittaker, Edwards (C), Davidson-Miller, Mitchell-Lawson, CresswellJibodu, Fryatt, Goode, Buchanan, ThomasTweets by @ dcfcofficial