A disappointed Billy Barr believes late heartbreak in the FA Youth Cup will be a big learning curve for the Rovers youngsters.

The Under-18s looked set to book their place in the last four of the competition as they led 2-1 but conceded an equaliser with five minutes to go before an injury-time penalty saw Blackpool progress.

The visitors dominated the opening hour and having taken the lead, Rovers saw George Wilson sent off for a poor tackle.

But that spurred them in to life, scoring twice through captain Hayden Carter and then Jack Vale which put them on the brink of the semi-finals.

After Blackpool’s late comeback, Barr was unhappy that his side were unable to see the game out.

“Very disappointed,” Barr said of the defeat.

“As good as we’ve been in the first five rounds I thought we were awful in the first-half, no bravery, I thought Blackpool were better than us, pressed better than us and if I’m being honest I thought we were lucky to come in at 0-0.

“The second half I thought we started better, but Blackpool score first, we lost our discipline, George will learn from it, but down to 10 men we got in to a matchwinning situation and didn’t do it.

“We’re speaking about people’s careers. We felt we didn’t have any leaders or organisers, kept getting deeper and with no pressure on the ball it was inevitably going to keep coming in to our box.

“Fair play to Blackpool. We didn’t underestimate them as a staff because we knew it would be difficult, they executed their game-plan far better than we did.”

Rovers had won through five rounds to make it in to the quarter-final stage but were unable to match the achievements of the class of 2015/16.

And Barr added: “There’s a lot of disappointed lads in the dressing room but they only have themselves to blame for the way they went about their work.

“They have taken the credit when the games have gone well and they have to now take it on the chin, reflect, look at themselves and ask ‘could I have done more?’ and the next time they’re in that situation they will have to draw on that experience.

“Every one of them is going in a different direction in their careers.

“It is a great learning experience, don’t ever underestimate an opposition and turn up and play when you want because it doesn’t work like that.

“You have to be at it every single time you’re out there and that goes for training during the week.

“They train to how they want to play and unfortunately at times we have some who don’t do it right and it’s caught us out.”