Sky Blues Under-21s Head Coach, John Dempster, was pleased with the way his side came from behind to beat Coleshill Town 6-1.
City headed into the break a goal behind, but an outstanding second half performance saw the 21s take the game away from the Non-League outfit and they booked their place into the fourth round of the Birmingham Senior Cup.
Will Bapaga scored a hat-trick in the game, alongside goals from Marco Rus, Justin Obikwu and Ricardo Dinanga.
Reflecting on the game, Dempster gave his post-match thoughts…
Looking back on the performance…
“It was a good second half performance. We were a little disappointed at half-time with the way we had performed.
“I thought it was quite an even game in the first 45 minutes and we were disappointed with the goal we conceded because it was very sloppy, but one or two of our players haven’t played for a while so you can understand them being a little bit rusty, but they put it right in the second half.
“I thought they did the club proud with their performances tonight. The first half wasn’t great like we mentioned but once we got up and running and got some of our patterns out, we scored some good goals.
“We gave Coleshill respect, we had watched them heading into the game and we knew they had some quality and we knew we had to get close to them to stop them delivering balls into the box and I thought we did that.”
Will Bapaga scoring a hat-trick…
“Will’s done well this season and he has put in some outstanding performances for the Under-21s and I think there is some interest externally on taking him out on loan and that could happen in the next few weeks.
“He’s been training and playing well and we’re happy with the way he’s been performing.”
Pleased with the 21s since their return…
“A lot of the 21s have been training really well and there have been some good performances throughout the whole season.
“We try and emphasise to them about taking each game as it comes and a lot of the hard work in training has come off today against Coleshill.”
Valuable experience…
“We started with two 16-year-old and in terms of experience it’s valuable for them and the rest of the players who managed to come on, because all the subs were scholars of the football club.
“Coming to a Non-League ground and playing against men, there were some tackles flying in towards the end because I think the opposition were frustrated, but that’s part of it and it’s experience in the bank and hopefully that will bode well for them.”