Town's U18s Manager Alan McLoughlin was pleased to see his side book their place in the next round of the FA Youth Cup after beating Salisbury 3-2 on Thursday night thanks to a last-gasp Jack Stanley goal, but was disappointed with a disjointed second-half performance.
“We’re obviously delighted to get through to the Second Round of the FA Youth Cup but we certainly made hard work of it,” he told swindontownfc.co.uk.
“I must credit and praise Salisbury’s players because I thought they were fantastic but the game should have been out of sight by half-time.
“We were 2-0 up and we did warn the players that it wasn’t a guaranteed scoreline and it was a silly penalty to give away.
“We seemed to lose our thread and the boys seemed to lose their way once it got a bit more direct and a little bit more physical, but that is something they’ve got to cope with.
“I’ve got to praise Salisbury because they pushed us all the way and they can count themselves very unfortunate not to have got a penalty as well.
“But credit to the lads because they dug in and found something.
“We had so many chances to finish the game off and you have to be ruthless.
“I was pleased with the first-half, I was pleased with what we did but I wasn’t pleased with the second-half and I’ve let the boys know that.
“We were a bit ragged in the second-half and I thought it was going to go to extra-time, but thankfully I’ve told Jack Stanley to go into the box and he’s managed to find the bottom of the net.
“We’re through to the next round but if we are going to progress in the tournament then we will need to produce a much more rounded performance over the 90 minutes.”
McLoughlin was also full of praise for U16 keeper Archie Matthews, who didn’t look out of place on the big stage.
“I must praise our U16 goalkeeper, Archie Matthews, who was fantastic and there was nothing he could do about the goals,” he continued.
“He was excellent considering he hadn’t trained or worked with us at all.”
