Frankie reflects on the 1-0 Final defeat
Huddersfield Town’s Professional Development Coach Frankie Bunn couldn’t contain his pride despite his side’s 1-0 defeat in the Under-18 Professional Development League 2 Final at QPR’s Loftus Road.
The Terriers were undone by a hotly disputed penalty in the final minute of the first half, but despite that never gave up and Bunn was full of admiration for his young charges for their achievements.
“There are some heads bowed low in the changing room and a few tears, but I’ve just told the players that the staff and I are immensely proud of what they have achieved this year. They’ve come a long way,” Frankie told htafc.com.
“These players keep going until the death. We’ve created a little motto in that we never give up and I think you could see that tonight; you could never say they gave up. There is a way to win and a way to lose and I thought we were very dignified in the way we met defeat tonight.
“We played a bit of football, but perhaps we were a little bit lacking in the final third. We tried to win the game, so we went more direct in the last 15 minutes and I thought we were the team that looked more likely to go on and win it. We looked very fit whilst some of their boys were going down with cramp, but in the end we needed a little bit of luck or quality in the final third this evening.
“I can’t really criticise the players, because they came here and worked tonight. Their work ethic was immense, which is something we’ve worked on to instil into them from the first day of pre-season. I think we saw the fruits of that this evening. Our players went for it, but unfortunately fell just a little bit short tonight.”
Most importantly, Bunn believes the Club is beginning to see the fruits of the hard work and investment put into the Academy over recent years through occasions and seasons such as this.
“I’ve told the lads that they have laid a foundation for themselves. Next season people will be wary of and know about Huddersfield Town at Under-18 level, without a doubt, and our lads may have to work a little bit harder as a result. We need to build on this season now.
“We’re trying to produce players for our First Team and they get put in scenarios that our First Team experience, such as tonight.
“We prepared well. The Club kindly looked after us in that respect and allowed us to come down the night before and have a little training session this morning to finalise a few things. We did things properly – as the First Team would have done it – but unfortunately it didn’t go for us this evening.”
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