NEW Wanderers under-21 development squad manager Iain Brunskill felt his side missed a big opportunity to progress in the Lancashire Senior Cup at Wigan on Tuesday.

Brunskill named a strong starting line-up for the quarter-final tie at the Robin Park Arena, including eight players who have played for the first team.

But, despite playing against a youthful Latics line-up that was reduced to 10 men at the start of the second half, they went down 1-0 to an unanswered Jordan Flores strike.

The new boss was naturally disappointed and felt, while his side did squander goalscoring chances, it was a lack of creativity with the extra man that proved most costly.

Brunskill told the club: "We had plenty of opportunities early in the game but then not really any until right at the end which is a big disappointment because they were down to 10 men for quite some time.

"Wigan defended gallantly but we didn’t quite have enough to get that goal back.

“Overall it is disappointing because we didn’t really create enough when they went down to 10 and we didn’t have the guile to put the game out of sight, which we really should have done early on.

“We let the game fizzle out in the middle when they went down to 10 at a time when we needed to come up with something different to make a breakthrough.

“They scored on the break and took their chance. We didn’t.

"I think the big message to the players is that you’ve got to take your chances when they come.

“There were some decent performances from some of the lads.

"They were difficult conditions but it something we need to get through, get over and learn from, particularly the younger players.

"The first team are doing well at the moment.

"They’re on a great run, with two young lads in Max Clayton and Josh Vela involved, and that has created a feel-good factor right through the club and the lads at this level want to be part of it."