An extremely youthful Rotherham United side were defeated 9-0 by Wigan Athletic, who moved to the top of the Central League table with a win in the reserves on Tuesday afternoon.
With an Easter weekend double header on the horizon for the Millers’ first team, Academy coach Ciaran Toner was charged with leading a side made up of a number of 16-year-olds into the fixture in Lancashire against an impressive Latics side.
With both clubs in with a shout of getting their hands on the Central League title in 2018/19, it was the ruthless hosts that edged a step closer following a dominant performance which saw Charlie Jolley and Oliver Crankshaw both net hat-tricks, with Luke Burgess on target netting a brace and Joe Gelhadrt adding to the scoreline.
The young Millers side found themselves four goals down at the half time break, before the Latics added a further five following the restart to ensure that they leapfrogged their opponents to claim top spot in the table, with both sides having one fixture each left on the schedule.
Reserves | Farrar; Beeden, Hull, Cooper, Salah; Hodgkinson, Spence, Carlton, Gratton; Peel-Evans; Etia.
Subs | Greaves, Hanley, Kenny, Smith.