Interim Sunderland U21s boss John Hewitson has highlighted the importance of first-team players playing alongside the upcoming crop of red and white youngsters. Bailey Wright was one of the fringe first-team players to be given important minutes for the U21s against Middlesbrough last night.
The Australian international has missed the first few games of Tony Mowbray's Sunderland tenure due to personal circumstances that's seen him have time away from the squad. The experienced centre-back played the full 90 minutes against Boro at Heritage Park.
"For them to play alongside those players, for them to then pass on the knowledge and experience on the pitch, it's probably the best learning tool really," Hewitson told Chronicle Live. "We can do lots of coaching and lots of training sessions but that, against real opposition, competitive opposition, just talking them through the game, adds massive value to our younger players.
READ MORE: Edouard Michut sent off on Sunderland debut as U21s edged out by Middlesbrough U21s
"I'm not sure it'll happen very often but because of the international break, that gives us the opportunity to play some of the players down. Again, the management are brand new so they want to see the players that are on the fringes - what they're like and can they add anything to the starting XI.
"The first-team are doing excellent at the moment and it's tough for them to break it - which is a good thing."
For the second game in a row Sunderland had a man sent off, with Edouard Michut shown a red card on his red and white debut for picking up a second yellow card. The challenge that warranted the second booking seemed a soft one, but referee Jacob Miles totted up the Frenchman's fouls and sent him for an early shower.
Hayden Hackney stepped up and fired a low drive - which deflected past Alex Bass - into the back of the net to put the result beyond any doubt, after Calum Kavanagh's first-half opener.
Hewitson said: "We gave ourselves a bit of a mountain to climb in a bit of an individual area where we gave the ball away and resulted in them counter attacking from there and scoring so early in the game. I thought both teams started off quite well and we grew into the game.
"We created some better opportunities but not enough. So we wanted to test their keeper more.
"Second-half we came out and I thought we had some good opportunities. But then, the second yellow card for Edouard [Michut] and resulting deflected game to make it 2-0 killed the game. We're bitterly disappointed.
"I think it was a competitive game. There wasn't a lot of football played. We tried to nullify what they did in terms of direct play but they countered on us really well.
"Ultimately we fell short tonight and it's something we need to work even harder on in the future."
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