Watson: "They Deserved It"

By Dominic Scurr

Dave Watson saw his Newcastle United under-18 side bow out of the FA Youth Cup on Wednesday night after suffering a 2-1 home defeat to AFC Wimbledon.

Having made the quarter-finals in each of the two previous seasons, coach Watson was disappointed with this season's cup performance from the young Magpies, given the favourable nature of their draw.

The Magpies made it past non-league Ilkeston in the third round and would have been pleased with a home tie against Wimbledon. But having already taken a Barclays Premier League scalp in the previous round against Watford, the Dons were far from a pushover as they booked a place in the last 16 courtesy of Alfie Egan's brace.

"We're all bitterly disappointed, as you would expect," Watson told nufc.co.uk.

"At St. James' Park (against Wimbledon) you expect us to go through but we didn't and in football you get these sort of disappointments. But you can't dwell on them for too long and you have to get over them, the quicker the better.

"It was a tough game for us. In the first half, we only managed to play for the last 15 minutes. We never really got going and by then we were already a goal down but it could have been three.

"We came in at half-time thinking we were lucky just to be a goal down because it could have been more.

"We managed to get a reaction in the second half and we got back into the game straight after half-time. After that it was pretty evenly balanced and could have gone either way."

The Dons snatched victory through Egan's close-range header with just three minutes of normal time remaining.

"They (Wimbledon) deserved it," Watson continued.

"They played well, caused us plenty of problems and deserved to go through.

"When you lose like that you can't do anything about it. The game is over, we will analyse it with the kids and hopefully they can learn a lot from it.

"We need to crack on, it's a big disappointment but we've got to face up to it, get better and move on."