Speaking after our Emirates FA Cup exit at the hands of Huddersfield Town this weekend, Jack Walton expressed his disappointment at the Reds’ failure to progress to the fifth round.
Not much separated the two sides in a keenly contested Yorkshire derby, but Duane Holmes’ first half strike settled the tie before Barnsley saw Michał Helik’s late header controversially ruled out.
“We’re obviously disappointed to go out in the cup,” said Walton. “The lads are all disappointed; we all wanted to be in the next round but, unfortunately, we lost the game.
“It was very close – a quite feisty game; I thought the referee let it go and let it be a derby and there were some good tackles in there. I said it was close and I think we were a bit unlucky at the end – I don’t think it was a foul and we’ve scored a pretty good goal.
“Unfortunately, when you have one of those seasons, you don’t get the luck or the rub of the green. We know that, but at the end of the day, we’ve got to control what we can control and that’s the rest of the game.
“Like I said, we were good but we just didn’t get to the final end.”
For Walton, playing in only his third game of the season, it was an opportunity to impress, and he certainly did just that in the blustery conditions at the John Smith’s Stadium.
Our stopper pulled off a number of fine saves to keep us in the tie, denying Josh Koroma, Sorba Thomas and Danny Ward as the hosts threatened to add to their tally.
“It was good for myself to be back out there to play and, overall, I was happy with my own performance,” asserted the 23-year-old.
“I’ll have to look back at the goal and watch how it occurred, but we’ll do the analysis as a team. Now, we’ve got to look forward because we’ve got a big game on Tuesday in the league.”
You can watch Jack’s post-match interview on iFollow Barnsley.