The injury to Terence Vancooten had some Stevenage fans worried but those fears will have now been eradicated after a mature performance at Sutton United from his replacement, Jonathan Tomkinson.

The on-loan Norwich City centre-half made his first start for the League Two promotion hopefuls and caught the eye in the 0-0 draw among two other stand-out performances from defensive colleagues Michael Bostwick and Carl Piergianni.

And Boro boss Steve Evans had no hesitation in throwing the 20-year-old Texan into the mix against the physical south London outfit.

He said: "The chairman said to me 'what are we getting' and I said 'it's a TVC'. 

"A couple of their boys tried to run him today. I tried to sign David Ajiboye last year, he has great pace. 

"He tried to run him and JT just run away from him so that tells you how quick he is. 

"He's got that Terence Vancooten pace and style and he can go home happy, all the back boys can go home happy." 

It is the second week in a row that the tall youngster has impressed, coming on against another physical team in Stoke City one week earlier.

And he is highly-rated at Carrow Road, to the point that Evans revealed he is only going to be with Boro for the rest of the season at the most.

"I know what Norwich think of him," said the Stevenage manager. "I know the plans are for JT for next season is to be part of their group, Premier League or Championship, so from our point of view, he's a great replacement [for Vancooten]."

Tomkinson will continue to get game time over the next couple of weeks with Vancooten set to be out for a couple of weeks.

The other missing central defender in the draw at Gander Green Lane, Dan Sweeney, should be back in training this week and should be available for selection when Bradford City visit the Lamex Stadium on Saturday.