Rovers U18s manager Chad Gribble felt the result of his side’s 0-0 draw at Lincoln City in the Professional Development League Cup reflected the nature of the game.
The visitors came close to scoring on numerous occasions throughout the match but ultimately failed to find a winning goal meaning the points were shared on matchday two of Group C.
He said: “I think Lincoln gave us a competitive, physical game of football and I think a draw was probably a fair result.
“We could’ve played for another half an hour and it would have only come down to who ran out of legs first or an individual error leading to a goal because I thought it was a game between two well-structured teams.
“We had the best of the opening part of the game but we probably didn’t do enough with that and they had the best of the opening 25 minutes of the second half but they didn’t do enough with that so I thought 0-0 was fair.
“Lincoln are a team that have scored a significant amount of goals in the league and in this competition so to keep a clean sheet is pleasing but we needed to turn some of our ball possession into goal chances.”
After falling to a first defeat of the season in the game previous, the youth manager felt his Rovers side provided the response he was looking for against Lincoln.
He added: “We wanted to be the hard to beat team again and to be that in our way.
“We wanted to have some good ball possession off that structure and I thought we did that in the first half.
“In the second half I thought we lacked a bit of calmness on the ball when we won it back and at times it changed hands to easily.
“We had to spend large amounts of time without the ball because Lincoln are a good side who use the ball well and when we did win it back, I felt the players urgency to break and score and the game didn’t need that.
“The game needed us to have spells with the ball so we can improve on that aspect but in terms of a reaction and a response, not losing again after doing so in the way that we did last week is a great response.
“To be able to come to Lincoln, keep a clean sheet and make it an evenly contested football match signals to people where we are because this is an opponent who’ve scored plenty of goals against other teams and sit top of the Youth Alliance League.
“We want to be competitive as a Rovers side and against Lincoln we’ve shown that we can be that.”