Martin Paterson feels the lessons learned in this competition will bode well for the future, following our exit at Port Vale on Wednesday night.
The Reds bowed out of the Papa John's Trophy at the last 32 stage with a 2-1 defeat at Vale Park yesterday evening.
Despite a spirited second half showing from a very young Barnsley team, it wasn't enough to force penalties in the end, and after four fixtures in the competition, the Reds' campaign ended in the Burslem rain.
"In terms of lessons and development, I'm proud of our time in the competition." Paterson asserted.
"We want to win games of football, that's why we are here. But I'm proud of the young players. At half time I probably wouldn't have said that, we struggled in the first half, but Vale are 10th in our division, they've fielded their strongest side, full of experience and they've played the environment better than we have in that first period.
"But at the break we've given the lads the detail and life lessons if you like, we changed shape and the young players took that on excellently and for me, we'll learn more from that performance in defeat than we took from being 4-0 up at Doncaster."
With a number of players ruled out through illness and injury, preparation was hampered going into this one. The likes of James Norwood and Fabio Jalo were unwell and Will Hondermarck picked up a knock in training.
"It hasn't been ideal," Martin admitted. "We've bounced from Saturday's game straight into this one and we've the FA Cup ahead of us also this weekend.
"You're trying to manage things as best you can and with some players unavailable, we had to rejig things a little. Fabio, for example is poorly, so a late withdrawal there.
"It's not an excuse, but it's a lesson for the players who did play that you need to be ready to go all the time."
