Jordan Hickey has drawn on the positives from Sunderland under-18s' home defeat to Blackburn Rovers on Saturday.
The young Black Cats have endured a challenging start to the U18 Premier League and while points were gained at Everton and Manchester United in recent weeks, Elliott Dickman’s side were defeated on their return to Wearside.
Despite a promising start from the youth team, Callum Hendry broke the deadlock inside 13 minutes to hand the visitors an early lead.
Lee Connelly struck back for Sunderland as he fizzed an effort across the face of goal but Brad Lynch doubled the visitors lead on the stroke of half time to deal the ultimate sucker punch to the hosts.
Dickman’s side continued to plug away after the break but just as they looked to be forcing their way back into contention, Joel Steer capitalised as Rovers rounded off the scoring.
While the defeat leaves the youth team rooted to the foot of the table and still chasing their first victory of the campaign, Hickey has refused to be downbeat.
“It was really two steps backwards and one step forward from the week before really,” he said.
“We have just got to take each game as it comes but to sum it up, it was a poor 30 minutes from us.
“We were better in the second half and we showed good signs as we tried to get back into the game. We had a few opportunities to score but it just wasn’t our day.”
He continued: “It’s something you can’t really dwell on because we can’t afford to get stuck in that cycle.
“If we get stuck then we’ll just end up repeating what we have done in the past so we have just got to pick it up and start each game as a fresh.”
