Experience paid off for the Fleet Air Arm on Saturday afternoon at Victoria Park, but despite the result Guernsey manager Leon Meakin said that there were positives he could take from his youthful side’s performance.
‘It was a difficult challenge. It was a team of men against a young team that we selected, so we’ve learned so much from today, individually and collectively, about this group, and that’s the positive we can take from a 4-0 defeat,’ he said.
‘It’s disappointing, but I think we shot ourselves in the foot at the start of each half really, giving a goal away within two minutes of the first half and then within a minute of the second half, so we made it difficult for ourselves. I thought we reacted well to conceding – as well as you can to going behind.
‘There were moments of quality from all the players at different times in the game, but we got punished when we made mistakes and it’s those mistakes that we’ve got to learn to limit going forward.’
Meakin praised his players for their efforts on Saturday afternoon.
‘I think Alfie Torode worked his socks off and he was absolutely everywhere today. Wilf Dorrian and Oskar Cleal also worked really hard.
'I think everybody can hold their heads up. They’ve worked hard and we have to move forward and see where this group end up by the end of the season.'
Historically, the Malaya Cup acted as preparation for the under-21 Muratti, but with Jersey pulling out of the inter-insular this year Meakin used the match to look towards the Junior Muratti in April.
‘We took the conscious decision to include as many of the under-18s as we could today. All nine of them started the game.
‘It is obviously frustrating and disappointing that we don’t have an under-21 Muratti, but we’ve used this to look towards the 18s Muratti and tried to get those players ready, and supplemented that group with a few of the older players.’
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