Paul Sheerin
“I thought we started the game well. We were good in possession, we passed it well. It was only three minutes in but they had done everything we asked them. Our boys had started well and it was a good sign.
“And then out of nothing we concede a goal.
“It is those fine lines.
“A simple ball over the top and a bad decision from (our keeper) Archie. But he is only a 16-year-old boy. That is an example of the learning process of the whole competition. You are playing at the higher level and you get punished for your mistakes a lot more than you do at U17 level which Archie was playing up until last year. He recovered well and made some very good saves. “After that I thought we let them enjoy the first half a bit too much in terms of possession and we did not get close enough to them. But you were always going to find that as Inverness have good players. They had boys who were playing in the Premiership last year.
“We tweaked it a little bit at half time which allowed us to get more closer to them and I thought the shape suited us a bit better in the second half.
“I thought at 3-0 we were a bit flat and feeling slightly sorry for ourselves so I was glad half time came when it did. We were able to take the positives from the first half and get into their heads it was not as bad as it seemed. Yes we conceded bad goals but we challenged them to go and win the second half.
“It was great to see them do that.
“The response to the first half in the second half was excellent.
“We created chances.
“Mark Ridgers actually makes an unbelievable save from Bruce in the first half which might just have made the game a bit different if we got back to 1-1. It would have given the boys a lift so they would have felt better about themselves.
“The goals (we scored) were good.
“For the first goal Seb (Ross) shows a great desire to go and get after the ball. It was a bit scruffy from their point of view but it was good that he got his reward for chasing it down.
“Bruce (Anderson) took his goal very well. He has been in great form and we will now go out on loan to Elgin. I hope Elgin will reap the benefits of that. You saw today what he can offer but he has not really been in the public eye yet. I hope when he goes there he will get a few goals.
“I have no complaints about the red card.
“I like the competition.
“I know there have been people who have been negative about it recently. As I said in the first round I disagreed with the Colts teams being drawn against each other after we played St Johnstone, I think we should be on a pot on our own, certainly to start the competition. “There is no getting away from what my players have learned today.
“That happens playing against good players. Yes the bulk of the (Colts) teams will go out in the early stages but maybe as the years go on we can prepare them better so we can keep progressing.
“That was certainly our aim today. We went into the game trying to cause an upset. That was maybe a bit arrogant but we wanted to be positive. We knew it was going to be difficult but we felt that we prepared them well to hopefully get a result. But as I said it is fine lines and the poor decisions we made in our own final third got punished. We got a lot more punished today than we would normally do at our level.
“That was probably the biggest learning curve today. You do get punished if you make mistakes or let runners run off you. Also them coming off the side and causing us problems in wide areas. We were all prepared for that but putting it into practice sometimes is the hard bit. We found that out to our detriment after three minutes.”
“That was probably the biggest learning curve today. You do get punished if you make mistakes or let runners run off you. Also them coming off the side and causing us problems in wide areas. We were all prepared for that but putting it into practice sometimes is the hard bit. We found that out to our detriment after three minutes.”
