Speaking after Hereford FC were dumped out of the HFA County Cup by Lads Club, interim manager Josh Gowling admitted that some of the youngsters in the team had not coped with the physicality of the game.
“Obviously we went two goals up and then we didn’t continue to press and work like we did do for the first 20 to 30 minutes, that was disappointing.
“It’s difficult especially for the young lads because that’s men’s football and they’ve not had a lot of that and so obviously they struggled with the physicality of the game.
“A game like today where the under-18s haven’t played a lot of men’s football that’s the standard and physicality they’re going to face.
“I don’t think we stood up to that today. It’s a learning curve and we spoke in there and said there was a lot of great positives to come from that and they’ll be stronger for it."
In the starting eleven were several senior players whom Gowling felt needed gametime.
"They needed minutes,” added Gowling.
"Ben (Pollock) has been out for a while, Kieran (Thomas) has just come back from a hamstring and (Kyle) Finn has had a head injury.
"Rhys (Davies) played as well and we needed those guys to play 90 minutes. We decided or not whether we were going to play younger players and have them training but I felt they needed minutes under their belts and they needed that tonight."
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