Manager Neil Ross believes his young U23s side will learn from the semi-final late defeat to Emley on Monday night, exiting them out of the West Riding FA Senior Cup.
Emley scored in the 86th minute to qualify for the final after Reggie Waud scored his 15th goal of the competition to level earlier in the half.
U18s’ Wilfred Frimpong made his debut for the U23s, joining captain Keanan Mannings, forward Louis Fialdini, ‘keepers Rhys Toft and Harvey Kelly, defender Jacob Smith and midfielder Moussa Sidibe as U18s within the U23s side.
“He did really well when he came on, Wilfred. We sent him on and just said – get in behind, get on the ball and run at players, and to be honest he had a chance at the end, I think if he’d have gone down he would of got a penalty,” began Ross.
“He’s a talented boy, it’s just a case of now maturing him and getting him regular playing in the 23s.
“They’ll learn from it [the result]. You probably learn more from losing games, than winning. We’ll sit down and go through it all and get them back in and go again next season”.
Ross was disappointed at the late defeat given his side’s impressive second-half performance which saw them firstly level, after a less impressive first-half.
“I think we started sloppy, started slow, didn’t really play to our game plan which we’d spoke about.
“The tempo was too slow in the first-half, not reactive enough, second to every ball, and then second-half I can’t fault them to be honest.
“Second-half – brilliant. High tempo, when we play at that tempo, teams can’t live with us, you seen that in the second-half but it’s just disappointing we didn’t start the game like that.
“I can’t fault any of them, second-half they gave everything and its just unfortunate at the end.
“it’s hard to take, obviously […] to then go and lose it right at the end”.