Sheffield Wednesday's Cameron Dawson has promotion experience and home-grown status adding to his growing value

Spending 2021-22 on loan with Matt Taylor's Exeter City did Dawson’s game a lot of good but so did experiencing a promotion.

Now the 27-year-old is determined to make it two out of two, and a League One home game against Milton Keynes Dons on Saturday can be another step in that direction.

There are records in the offing too, not that Dawson is too fussed about them. Avoid defeat and the Owls will equal the club’s longest unbeaten league run three days after breaking its milestone for most league clean sheets (18) in a season.

"Records and stuff like that are more for people outside to focus on," he replies. "We are just very focused on preparing for the next game. I don't know what the record is (19 games), we're just concentrating on trying to put in a good performance and then we'll move onto... I don't even know what the next game is, is it Charlton? (It is.)

"There's a few injuries at the minute but most clubs go through it at different times and the manager will be putting a team out he thinks can win the game and that's our job."

Everything at Middlewood Road is focused on getting back to the Championship, and Dawson's loan experience can help the process.

"For most footballers you don't want to miss out on a promotion season," he says. "Some people go their whole careers and don't manage to do that. I'll happily say it was a fear of mine, missing out.

"As footballers you see the videos at the end of every season of teams celebrating and think that must be fantastic so to have had that feeling last year was incredible and just makes it you want it more.

"As it gets closer to the end of the season I'll be having feelings I've had before so I suppose that will help but until we get there, we won't know.

"We'll just keep looking at the next game and if we're fortunate enough to be in there at the end of things I have them to call on."

His time with the Grecians also taught Dawson about keeping his concentration behind a miserly defence, essential training for playing behind the unit he does now.

"Goalkeeping especially in successful teams is something where you're not going to be needed for the whole game and it's about making sure you turn up in the big moments so that aspect probably did help last season," he reflects.

"We weren't overly dominant all the time but we won more games than we lost so it was about turning up in the big moments."

His manager sees what good last season did Dawson.

"(In the summer of 2021) we saw a goalkeeper that had suffered an injury and needed game-time," explains Darren Moore.

"Game-time gives you decision-making, angles of approach to the ball when defending your goal or when it's at your feet on repetition.

"The mindset of playing in front of a crowd trying to get three points and being part of a promotion team was important.

"We needed him to get 40-odd games because the difference in him was huge – his agility, his speed, his decision-making. When we had the call in the summer (asking) to take him back for a second season loan, I had an easy decision to make."

Further helping is Dawson's growing reputation for saving penalties. His stop at Ipswich Town was his third this season, despite being limited to 17 appearances by David Stockdale's first-choice status until mid-December.

"I think of it as an opportunity to really affect the game," he says. "It's the nearest thing to being a striker and everyone wants to be a striker."

Dawson’s importance goes beyond goalkeeping and experience. Like Liam Palmer, he is a boyhood fan and academy graduate.

"Palms and myself are well aware of what this club can be if we keep us tanking in the right direction," says someone who was at the 2005 League One play-off final. "When you've seen it first hand, those great days, it's something you want to give the club in the future."

The significance is not lost on Moore, a former academy coach.

"It's a real special noise when you hear the fans signing 'He's one of our own'," he says. "Daws and Liam Palmer are shining that beacon towards the academy. They have definitely paved the way for more.

"We can't be a club of the size and stature we are and not produce our own players.

"Hopefully by the time they get to us they're more or less the finished article and it's putting on the power and the understanding of the game. It's the bits and pieces Sean (Fusire), Rio (Shipton), Adam (Alimi-Adetoro), Cads (Bailey Cadamarteri), to name a few the supporters have seen around the team, need.

"In recent weeks when we've had injuries those academy players have had to step in. If they're not being worked at the level to get into the first team it's impossible for them to do that."