Paul Sheerin spoke to RedTV after the defeat to Hibernian

On the match

“It was the proverbial game of two halves.

“I really enjoyed the first half and I enjoyed the way we played. I thought everything we’d asked they done in terms of being compact and keeping the shape. We did everything other than score really. I think Sam has a good chance, Seb’s unlucky with one and there’s arguably a penalty that again is not given. The first 45 I was really pleased.

“But we warned them, and I could feel their frustration (Hibs) on the touchline and their manager was getting frustrated. I said they will have a reaction to that and their change of shape spooked us a little bit for whatever reason and maybe myself never got their quick enough to deal with that.

“On the pitch you have to just keep doing the same things which is exactly that. We were two banks of four and harder to break down, but because of that we ended up spreading out a wee bit and big Sam should win the first header and he let it bounce. We then ended up a bit all over the place and lose the first goal. After that we couldn’t quite react and couldn’t get going. We tried to change the shape and it didn’t quite work. The deflection for the first goal obviously kills us and doesn’t give us an opportunity to get back into it. I’m frustrated obviously with the result, but not overly disappointed as there was enough in the game.

“I saw real encouragement in the first half and yes we’re disappointed we got beat because we don’t want to lose games, but they’ve played with four over-agers where again we were all under 20’s. In terms of going forward to next week we’ll keep encouraging them, pick them up and yes they’ll be disappointed with that today as we obviously don’t encourage being happy after defeats. We can be disappointed today, but it’s gone now, it’s past and we’ll get up the road and start preparing for next week.

On Sam Roscoe and Dean Campbell

“It was good to get big Sam (Roscoe) back and the same with Dean (Campbell). Dean comes off frustrated with himself, but he has to realise that’s six or seven weeks he’s been out for and it’s going to take time, but it’s brilliant to get him back on the pitch. He shows his composure at times, gives you a different option in terms of the way you play so it’s really pleasing to have him back. Obviously, Sam has been outstanding for the bulk of the season so they’re two big players to come back in and for them to get minutes is really pleasing.

On the Youth Cup Final

“It will be a totally different game (Cup Final). I think we’ll have to take encouragement from the first half. The fact they had four over-agers and we didn’t have any I take encouragement from that. We’ll look at the goals and how we could have done better, but in terms of the game itself there’s plenty positives to take from this one into next week.

“For the boys themselves it’s been a good season and I’ve told them that. Yes, be disappointed that the league is now gone, but for the main part of the season they’ve been a good group. They’ve worked hard and now for them and certainly for this age group it’s the biggest game in 15 years, the last time they were in a cup final, so we’ll just prepare for that now. We wipe out today and we look forward to it because it’s a big game. Hopefully it will generate a lot of interest and the boys can go and do themselves, their families and the club proud.”