Kevin Hodges admitted he watched a disappointing performance from Rovers Under 18s this evening.

The club's head of youth watched on as Billy Clark's side slipped to a 3-0 defeat at the hands of Brighton & Hove Albion in a one-sided FA Youth Cup tie at the Memorial Stadium.

"It was a very disappointing performance, as it was an ideal opportunity to see our under 18s in a high profile fixture, on the big stage, and we were looking for plusses and performances," Kevin told bristolrovers.co.uk.

"On the night however, there weren't too many plusses, as Brighton were the more polished team. They operate in a slightly different way to us, and while we are bringing players through our system, and I think that tonight highlighted what the differences can be between the systems operated by both clubs in the area of youth football.

"I thought we started brightly but the first two goals we conceded were poor, from our point of view, especially the second one.

"In fact, that was probably the turning point, because it came just after Charlie Clough had hit the post at the other end following our first decent cross into their box. We never really looked as though we would recover from conceding for a second time. We didn't pass the ball well enough, and started going route one far too often.

"It's a learning curve for everyone. We have to make judgements on people and, based on tonight's performance, there is still a lot to do. However, our job is to work with these players and we hope that a couple of them, at least, will make it through to the pro ranks. We'll just have to wait and see and see how they respond to this defeat."

On the positive side, the performance of Charlie Clough was encouraging.

"In fairness to him, he picked up an injury in the reserve team game against Bristol City last week and has had just one training session since then, but he covered an awful lot of ground tonight," said Kevin.

"His height is a big advantage and he won a lot of aerial challenges. But, as with the other lads, we are still looking for better from him and I'm sure he will be wanting to do better himself. But overall he was the one who probably did stand out. From our point of view that's pleasing, because he's with the first team squad on a full-time basis now."