In what proved an absorbing and hard-fought encounter, a young and inexperienced City side went down 3-1 at Oakwell to our League One opponents in our second Group F clash.
All three goals for a Tykes side featuring several first team members came from set pieces, with Will Dickson striking for City’s Under-21s late in the first half.
For Barry-Murphy the learnings from such a game will be vital in terms of aiding his players’ long-term development.
And despite the result, he believed there were numerous positives in the way his side went about their task in south Yorkshire.
“It’s a game that I will definitely learn a lot from, and my job is to then transmit that to the players in terms of key takeaways for us all going forward,” the head coach reflected.
“There were good moments for us where we created really good chances, especially in the second half, but we just didn’t take them and limited the opponents to very little when we look back at the game.
“In the end they scored three goals from set pieces which is something we have had in this competition before and it’s hard to control.
“I think that is a by-product of playing in this competition and for the players the challenge is to control the amount of set pieces that we concede as we know how strong the opponents will be in them.
“I think it’s virtually impossible to concede no set pieces so in the moment where it happens we have to show our players it’s a very important part of the game and we have to get better at it because they are very important duels.
“I said to the players the challenge we face is understanding how difficult the set pieces are but becoming really, really good at it and getting better at it but understanding at this stage of their careers its difficult against such opponents.
“There’s context where our team is extremely young, and we have to be forgiving of our players in terms of how they deal with certain physical aspects of the game, and we will be as long as we are all trying to make them better and improve them.
“But I really enjoyed watching the lads. I was looking for signs at the end of how we were when it became 3-1 and how we would react, but we kept going right until the end.
“The players had a few bumps and bruises and knocks but they kept running right until the end and that’s all we can ask for.”
