Zain Westbrooke believes he and his teammates felt they had already won their FA Youth Cup Third Round tie, leading 2-0 with 15 minutes to go, before Hull city staged a remarkable turnaround to win 3-2 after extra time.
The Bees bossed the first 70 minutes of the match at North Ferriby United on Tuesday and deservedly led 2-0 thanks to James Ferry’s penalty and Courtney Senior’s fine strike.
However Will Annan scored twice in the final 13 minutes and then grabbed a third in extra time to send the Premier League side through the Fourth Round.
Speaking to Bees Player after the match Zain could not hide his disappointment at the defeat and admitted that The Bees thought the game was over leading 2-0 late on.
“It is really gutting at the moment,” said Zain.
“At the moment in the dressing room all the lads’ heads are a bit down.
“We felt like we were in control of the game for most of it and we let it slip through our own accord.
“I think we got a bit too comfortable and we thought we had already won it.
“That proved not to be the case.
“At 2-0 we thought it was job done.
“We slacked off and we didn’t do the stuff that got us ahead in the first-place and we were made to pay.
“The first 70 minutes was what might have got to our heads.
“We maybe thought it was a bit too easy because everything was going well.
“We had to start talking to each other and organising earlier than we did at 2-1.
“I think at 2-1 we still thought the game was ours but we needed to realise there would be consequences if we didn’t stay in front and that showed.
“It is disappointing to say that we got too comfortable.
“If we did stay how we had been from the first 45 minutes we could easily have come away with something here.”
Brentford threw everything at Hull in the closing stages and came close to levelling the game up at 3-3 as Gradi Milenge had a goal ruled out for offside and Reece Cole and Jeremiah Kamanzi had good chances.
Zain said that the fact that they had played so well for the first 70 minutes and that they continued to create chances and play football when they were 3-2 showed great character but also made the defeat hurt more.
“The way we played in the first-half makes it hurt that bit more,” said Zain.
“We had many chances especially at 0-0.
“Even at 3-2 we had chances at the end to get back in it and knowing that just hurts that little bit more.
“We can take character from the way we played at 3-2.
“We never stopped and even when the lads were hurting we kept going.
“It is good that we have got that fight and that we could get it at any time.
“When you come back from 2-0 you are feeling the buzz and you have got the momentum with you.
“When you are going down you feel like everything is going against you.
“You do have to get yourselves back.
“Get you style of play back on the ball and dictate it like we had done.
“We knew we could but we just didn’t show it at the end there.
“The coaches are glad that, even though we lost the game, we didn’t leave anything on the pitch.
“That was good from us.
“We showed we would try everything to win and to keep playing well.
“At the end we did kick it up a few times but we did show that we wanted to play football.
“We wanted to win the game by playing football.”
Now that the FA Youth cup run is over Zain said it is important that he and his teammates focus on the new challenges that they have coming up.
As a second-year scholar Zain is competing to get a Development Squad contract for the 2015/16 season and he said that has to be his main aim now.
The 18-year-old believes that he can use Tuesday’s defeat as inspiration to show how hard he needs to work to achieve his aims at Brentford.
“It would have been lovely to keep challenging ourselves and give us more chances in this competition but it hasn’t worked out like that,” said Zain.
“There are many more challenges for us to do.
“It is the last year of my contract but there is so much more I can get out of my contract, especially this Florida trip.
“We know that now we have lost this we need to do something there.
“It would have been nice to have gone there with a win but this has reminded us that everything is not that easy.
“It is not all given to you, you have to work for what you get.”
Bees Player subscribers can listen to the full interview here