Gillingham manager Mark Bonner hopes the midweek EFL Trophy defeat against Crystal Palace proved an eye-opener for their own young hopefuls.
Visiting teenager Caleb Kporha was among the Crystal Palace players who proved a handful as Gillingham teenagers like Harry Webster and Alex Giles got more minutes alongside the senior pros in the Trophy game.
Youth player Harry Waldock came off the bench for his senior debut with the Gills while Stanley Skipper made only his second first-team appearance and the first under current boss Bonner.
“It’s good for our lads to see some really good players at Premier League 21’s level,” said the Gills manager. “To see how athletic and technically sound they were in some moments.
“The (EFL Trophy) competition is an opportunity for so many of them to do that and it’s good for them, whether that’s the ones playing for the first time or in the first handful of games in their career.
“Hopefully that game serves them well and they’ve got to see what good looks like.
“Even in the case of the ones that have played a couple of games, Joe Gbode, even in that category as well it shows you what the best players, or some of the better players in this country at your age, are like. You see what good looks like.
“If those (Palace) players don’t play in the Premier League, they only fall one way and it’s into this level, so you’ve got to be better than them.
“It’s a good experience to learn, to see what it looks like and that’s where I always touch on the point of consistency.
“We’ve seen some good levels and then we’ve seen some struggles (on Tuesday), but that will pay them back somewhere along the line, they’ll learn from those.”
Defender Harry Webster – who recently signed a professional contract at the club – came up against Kporha in the first half while playing left-back before switching to his preferred right side in the second half.
He ended the game needing treatment after suffering from cramp, in what was a tough evening.
Bonner said: “That was a brilliant experience for him. He probably won’t feel like it’s been a good one and he’d be right to reflect like that.
“I actually prefer seeing young players have the bad days because they’re all capable of a good one.
“The response to the bad ones and the tough games and things is when you see whether they’ve got the onions or not. That’ll be good for him.
“I labelled him our Phil Neville (before the game) and he said, ‘I don’t know who that is – I don’t remember him as a player’ because he was too young. So I realised, ‘oh yeah, bad reference from the coach!’
