Derby County Head Coach Paul Warne was pleased to get match minutes into more of the squad during the penalty shoot-out defeat to Mansfield Town in the Papa Johns Trophy on Tuesday evening.
The Rams played out a 1-1 draw with the League Two side in Group F of the Northern Section of the competition to pick up a point, before falling to a 6-5 defeat on penalties with Mansfield claiming an extra point.
Lewis Dobbin was Derby's goalscorer midway through the first half, with the hosts equalising direct from a corner in added time at the end of the opening 45 minutes through George Maris.
Warne caught up with RamsTV afterwards to give his thoughts on the performance and to look ahead to his first game at Pride Park Stadium this weekend when they return to League One action against Port Vale.
On the performance…
As a workout, it is what it is. We got through it clean and with no injuries. The lads will be a little bit fitter when they wake up tomorrow, especially those that have been on the periphery.
It’s a lesson that we can use to help the lads. I don’t think we played at our best tonight, but we created enough chances to win it. However, they probably created enough chances to make it a 7-7 game.
There’s good things to take away and things we need to improve on, as we know. It’s a work in progress. All in all, I'm not over the moon but not heartbroken either.
On the game allowing minutes to more players…
It gave an opportunity for other lads to play and put their mark on things and understand what we want. The lads that played at the weekend at Cambridge, nobody played more than 45 minutes.
In fairness, going forward we were an average age of around 19 at times and I thought they did really well. On other occasion, they got outwitted by Mansfield's senior professionals.
It did feel like a bit of a pre-season friendly where, unless you come here and win 3-0 and play perfect, you’re never going to be fully happy. The players are healthy and they’ll learn something from tonight, I hope. We’ll go again Saturday.
On things that need improvement…
I’ve said it to the lads, it’s my fault. I’m the one that thinks they’ve got the right messaging and obviously not.
At times when we did do the right thing, we absolutely cut them open. Their effort levels were amazing. Liam Thompson got around the pitch all night. Some things came off for him and some things didn’t, but that’s football. We didn’t win enough first contacts at both ends of the pitch and we didn’t get on enough seconds either.
Fundamentally, you can say what you want about any tactics and any shape - those are fundamental to any sort of success and I don’t think we were as good at those tonight as we would like.
On Lewis Dobbin’s first senior goal…
It was a great finish. Max Bird put him in for an unbelievable chance earlier on and I was just waiting for the net to rip as well.
Fair play to Dobs, I thought he made great runs off the shoulder and he was a livewire.
On William Osula missing out due to illness…
It will be a blow if he’s not available to consider for selection for the weekend, but I don’t know right now. He was feverish; he was ill. He was hugely disappointed that he couldn’t play because it was a really good opportunity for him to show how great he is. Hopefully he will be able to train on Thursday. There’s a little bit of illness in the camp, a few lads have been chesty.
On the prospect of his first game at Pride Park on Saturday…
I’m looking forward to it. I’ve got a few of my family members coming up for it. I’m looking forward to the feeling at 5pm if we’ve won; that will be an amazing feeling.
We all look forward to the performance. If the lads can compete like they did last week at Cambridge and play with the same intensity then hopefully we can get a positive result and it will be a lovely Saturday afternoon for the Warne’s and everyone connected with Derby County.