Hibs youngsters suffered a narrow defeat in Kosovo yesterday, but progressed to the UEFA Youth League third round following a 4-1 aggregate win over FC 2 Korriku.
The hosts opened the scoring inside two minutes, before a physical battle ensued over the next 88 minutes – with skirmishes breaking out all over the poorly conditioned pitch.
After the final whistle Darren McGregor told Hibs TV:”When we saw the fixture we obviously knew it’d be a difficult game, coming to difficult places. Thankfully we brought a good lead over.
“Ultimately I’m delighted to be through. But I think the start of the game gave us a bit of anxiety and a bit of nervousness, and that sort of permeated the whole game if I’m being honest.
“It was difficult. When you concede early, it gives them something to hang on to so we had spoke about that, about being pragmatic in our approach but ultimately we concede a goal early and, as I say, that gives a nervousness to the lads and I think in the second half we did do better.
“We had clear-cut chances to score, we don’t take our chances and that just again creates a wee bit of anxiety. But ultimately what we set out to do was to go through and we’ve done that, so now we’ll look forward to the next round.
“We prepped the lads for that, we knew that that would be the case, (with them) trying to manipulate the boys, trying to coerce them into making sort of bad decisions to get them booked and then playing on that.
“That was evident and there was a couple of things that I don’t really want to discuss on camera that were really deplorable. They dealt with it really well and I say that to the lads. The lads should be proud in the end of the performance.
“I think they will (have learned from the trip), one hundred percent. We’re in a new environment, new stimulus, you’ve got travelling on top of that which the boys aren’t used to but I thought they dealt with it really really well and the experience that they will have gotten from this will stand them in great stead moving forward.”
Hibs U19s captain Joseph McGrath added “I’m pleased obviously. We go out to win the game, it doesn’t end up being that way but I’m proud of the lads.
“We dealt with a lot of adversity out there and obviously we’re just pleased to get through to the next round.
“This was a proper men’s game, that’s what it felt like to play in. Obviously we’ve got that experience from the (KDM Evolution) Trophy, which has definitely helped us.”
The centre-back is delighted to be in the next round of the competition, but is also pleased with how the trip has been as a whole.
“I think for a couple of lads it’s their first time being away; whereas I’ve obviously I’ve travelled a few times with Scotland now.
“I’m sort of getting used to it but I always enjoy going away, it’s always a good experience seeing different cultures as well and I’m just happy to get the aggregate win as well.
“We obviously know it’ll be either Poland or Sweden we’ll be travelling to, so I think the lads will be watching the game tonight to see how that ends up, so it’s exciting!”
