Cardiff City U18s were beaten 8-4 at The Den against a strong Millwall side.
A strong end to the game by the hosts took the result beyond the young Bluebirds after a resilient 85 minutes.
After an end to end start, City took the lead on the 30-minute mark when Mannie Barton impressively weaved his way past the Millwall defence before calmly slotting home. Tom Hutton's side were given the opportunity to double their lead ten minutes later when the referee pointed to the spot, however Osian Rees saw his spot-kick saved by Millwall stopper Jakub Przewozny.
The Lions drew level on the stroke of halftime as Alfie Massey fired into the bottom corner from the edge of the box.
Millwall took the lead three minutes after the break when Adedapo Olugbodi met a corner at the far post. He would go on to score another five minutes later, rising highest from a corner to make the score 3-1.
City were awarded another penalty on 67 minutes, which Barton confidently dispatched to half the deficit. An instant reply saw the hosts restore their advantage when a 50/50 challenge between Bluebirds keeper Luke Armstrong and Oliver Whitby ended up at the feet of the striker who slid home into an empty net.
Barton completed his hat-trick with 15 minutes to go, slamming home a powerful effort at the near post on the break. The young Bluebirds completed the comeback ten minutes later, with Barton netting his fourth goal of the afternoon. However, the hosts had a strong end to the game to claim victory.
After the game, we caught up with U18 head coach Tom Hutton.
“I think we knew today was a challenge. For many reasons, first and foremost, I think Millwall are a good team, they've had a lot of success this year in cup competition. So at this level, you come up against a good team. Added to that, we're quite a young group today, we had quite a lot of U16s involved, some for their first involvement in U18 football, so you have to consider that when dissecting the game.
“We tried to prepare the boys for the challenge as best we could, but I think that with that there is still a level of expectation. Whilst there were some really good moments today, there were some really poor moments as well. While you expect inconsistency from the younger players, in certain moments today, the expectation for us is to do better, particularly as we worked so hard to get ourselves back in the game.
"We had to work really hard for everything we did today and the goals that we scored, then it was a bit too easy for them at the end."