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Wanderers’ B Team boss Matt Craddock says his side showed “some real quality” in their narrow 1-0 defeat at Bamber Bridge.
Fin Sinclair-Smith got the decisive goal during the second half, but the young Whites had several chances of their own.
Craddock felt it was a "completely different" game to last week's trip to Atherton Colls and says there are "plenty of positives" from the second half.
“I think we’ve got a young group that have been thrown together quite quickly and what we want them to try and do is solve the problems that we had in the first half,” he said.
“We obviously helped them at half-time and then they put that into practice in the second half and looked a million times better.
“Where they have to get to is they have to be able to solve that problem themselves and recognise what the problem was but another pleasing learning experience for us.
“Bamber Bridge gave us something completely different to what Atherton gave us last week and I think with the pitch quality that they have here, when we did have possession - particularly in the second half - I think we showed some real quality.
“I think we moved the ball well, we got into some really good areas and on another day maybe get a penalty and if we’re a little bit more incisive, we probably create a few more chances but I think a lot of positives from the second half.
“The first half is a learning one for us and I think the quicker we can learn those lessons and the quicker we can solve things in action during the game, the quicker these guys will develop.”
The newly-launched team have now got two good workouts against local opposition under their belt ahead of the upcoming season.
“The manager said at the weekend we win or we learn and we’re learning every week,” added Craddock.
“Sometimes it’s disappointing. The players are disappointed, and it’s our job to be quite consistent and quite calm and keep them going because learning has peaks and troughs.
“And it was brilliant to be playing with Tuttey (Andrew Tutte) and Baka (Amadou Bakayoko) today because the players learn off them. A young group and we’ll continue learning.
“We’re back in tomorrow morning and we’ll view the video and learn again. And we’ve got an even tougher game next week, so we’ll just keep learning and we’ll keep going.”
Bakayoko played 60 minutes up front after returning from a minor knee issue against Carlisle at the weekend.
“He just needed some minutes tonight,” the manager explained. “We had 45 minutes in mind and he felt really good, so we gave him another 15.
“I think if we would have let him have his way, he would have probably carried on so we had to drag him off in the end!
“He is fantastic for the lads and he has been brilliant with the group.”
Conor Carty was denied by the woodwork early in the second half, while Bamber Bridge goalkeeper Felix Goddard also made a vital intervention as Gerald Sithole was about to slot home.
“It’s really pleasing. A lot of the time, it looked like training,” added Craddock.
“We showed some really good patterns of play, really moved the ball well. We moved the ball out of pressure, we had the nice diagonal on quite often as well.
“I keep saying to the players, we are doing some really good things but we can make them better. That was our message from last week.
“We got into some good areas but with a little bit of decision-making or technical quality, we make those into really good chances. So really pleasing but still a lot to do.”
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