Matt Hamshaw talks to www.themillers.co.uk...
Rotherham United Academy coach Matt Hamshaw says the club’s youngsters can learn a lot from their 2-0 defeat to York City in The Central League on Tuesday afternoon.A youthful Millers’ side were undone by goals from Kaine Felix and Scott Fenwick, despite forging a number of chances of their own, the most notable of which came in the form of a first half header for Ben Wiles.
Hamshaw, who took charge of a side containing a number of first year scholars at Roundwood, says elements of the performance were pleasing but admits work will go into looking to eradicate the mistakes made on Tuesday afternoon.
“I think it is vital experience for our players and the things that were really pleasing from our point of view were the enthusiasm and the work rate,” he told www.themillers.co.uk.
“At any level we want to win games of football and we make lads aware of that. Nobody ever wants to get beat and if you do, you need to make sure it’s in a manner that you’ve done everything you can.
“I was disappointed with the goals if I’m honest because we should have stopped the crosses and then there were people free in the box.
“That will be something we’ll run through with the lads in the video analysis but they aren’t senior pros and they haven’t played a lot of games. In terms of them watching it back and educating them on where they need to be, hopefully it will prove a big learning curve for them.”
After going in 2-0 down at the interval, the Millers turned in a disciplined second half display with Hamshaw explaining that the youngsters’ game management had been discussed in the team talk.
“We didn’t think that we managed the situation well enough and we spoke about that at half time,” he continued.
“There were times when we were going long against three 6ft4 centre halves, but again it is vital learning time for them.
“I would have expected a better reaction towards that and they should have managed the game a little bit better and whilst I wouldn’t say it’s a reality check for them, it is a different kind of test for them against that type of opposition."