In a hard-fought encounter at Blundell Park, the visitors deservedly struck a two-goal lead inside 38 minutes before being reduced to 10 men on the cusp of half-time.
Despite having a player less for the second half’s entirety, we defended bravely against senior opposition and didn’t let the disappointment of drawing the match 2-2 knock our confidence as we held our nerve in the shootout.
George Murray-Jones was the hero in the decider for an extra point by impressively saving two efforts while we scored all four of our attempts.
And Barry-Murphy was pleased with City’s entire performance, but especially the football on show in the first half.
“My overall assessment was there were phases in the first half where I thought we were exceptionally good,” he declared.
“Obviously the sending off changed the game but we were brave and we created some good chances in the second half.
“As the match went on naturally Grimsby created good momentum and pressure and it was an amazing experience for our players.
“I think it’s easy to forget how good we were in the first half based on the way the game evolved in the second half and I was very proud of the boys.
“The team is a long way back in terms of experience compared to [last year] and Grimsby were stronger so I was very interested to get a measure of if the players could compete at that level and I thought some of our play in the first half was exceptional.
“There would have been a lot of question marks in the players’ minds after the amount of goals we’ve conceded early in the season, so to see the resilience later in the game was very interesting for me.
“It gives us real reference points to how we’ve improved at this part of the season and hopefully how much we can improve moving forward.”
The 2023/24 EFL Trophy represents the seventh successive year City have competed in the competition since it reformed in 2016/17.
And our EDS boss says his players are exposed to a unique environment compared to Academy football every time they compete with senior professionals.
He added: “Technically in the first half is what we expect from our players but the physicality in that test was very high so I was very pleased with that.
“In the second half really the players won’t have the exposure to defending the box for their lives and I suppose showing that resilience when you concede two goals [is good] because it’s very easy to conceded a third or a fourth.
“But I saw bodies on the line and I saw a goalkeeper playing exceptionally well, being supported by every player on the pitch and that’s the beauty of this competition.
“The players are experiencing things in the box they just won’t get PL2 or European competitions so it’s probably of the greatest value to me moving forward to see that.”
