BURTON Albion Under 18s’ unbeaten start in the league came to an end at the hands of Mansfield Town, who humbled the young Brewers with a 6-0 defeat.
Mansfield, who had already overcome Burton once this season with a 2-1 win in the Youth Alliance Cup, started ruthlessly, scoring four goals in the opening quarter of an hour, then scoring twice in the second half, just as they did in the cup tie seven days earlier.
Manager Sam Rose admitted that his team had been beaten by the better side but was keen to take what little positives there were from the game.
“It is difficult to find any real positives but we have to use it going forward and we have got to evaluate what went wrong and what we need to do better. I think it will be a good opportunity for the players to reflect on individual performances and how they are going to perform in future.
“All credit to Mansfield. We were unbelievably four-nil down after 15 minutes and I’m not sure we will see that again for a long time. Mansfield were very clinical, played some good football, played short, played long and really did dominate us from the first minute.
“I don’t want to put the lads down too much but it was really quite disappointing. But we will use the situation to look at what went well, what needs to improve and use it going forward.”
Rose also believes that his players need to take note of the consistency that The Stags have shown and was full of praise for John Dempster’s team.
“We need to remember that this is youth development football and that consistency is difficult to deliver, but Mansfield seem to have found a way to consistently deliver those results and it was another clean sheet for them today.
"I think that the only goal they have conceded since April was the one we scored in the 90th minute the week before, which is an unbelievable record from John Dempster’s side and credit to them.”