Youth boss Mark Birch gave us his reaction to the friendly victory over Workington shortly after the full-time whistle had blown on Wednesday night.
“For it being our first game back I thought the lads looked sharp,” he said. “They had a go at the things we’ve been working on in training, which is pleasing to see.
“I thought they really grew into the game and it was good to see them playing with confidence and enthusiasm, which is what we want.
“Credit to Workington because they made it a good game. They stepped in at the last minute to play us and they made it really competitive. It was the kind of test we needed.
“Another pleasing thing is that we can do all the work we want with them, but it’s up to them to go out there and produce it. It’s up to them to try and implement it, and they did that for us.
“It wasn’t perfect by any means but they had a go at it, and that’s all you can ask. We saw good rotations, good movement, and some good football was played as well.”
On a hat-trick for Romeo Park, he added: “When we sat down and talked to him at the end of last season, and did his review with him and his dad, we told him that we wanted to see more goals and assists from him.
“He has to be realistic in terms of this one is early in pre-season for Workington as well, but it certainly won’t do him any harm.
“It’s a good start for him. It proves that he’s listening to what we’re saying.”
“It’s about standards for everybody,” he concluded. “It’s like putting scaffolding up, you want to finish one level then get onto the next one.
“We want to see improvement each time we play. The lads will get to know each other as we go on from here, and for some lads it’s the first time they’ve played in this group.
“We had some under-16s and under-15s involved, so it’s a learning curve for everybody. It was pleasing because we got out of it exactly what we wanted.”