Town boss Mick McCarthy was annoyed that his much-changed side failed to take their chances and conceded a poor goal and were beaten 1-0 away by Rotherham United.
"I’m annoyed that we’ve lost, that’s my assessment,” McCarthy said. "We got away with it because Gerks made a good save [from Danny Ward’s early penalty] and I said to them at half-time, we’d have had burning legs and burning lungs because they hadn’t all been playing.
"They’d got over that and in the second half I thought we were better and we made chances and I think we should have been in front, but we contrived to find another way to give a goal away.
"It was a good finish by him [Tom Adeyemi] in the end but it shouldn’t have got to that. I’m a bit miffed about it.
"It was difficult to get back into it because there wasn’t long left and they got a real kick out of it and they could sit back and they’ve got a fair bit of pace up front, to be fair to them. We didn’t take our chances and they kept doing us on the break.”
McCarthy felt his team gelled as the game progressed after Rotherham had had the better of the early stages.
"We had got beyond that at half-time,” he added. "OK, we lacked a bit of cohesion with the way we were passing it but I thought we started to get that in the first half and in the second half we did have it and we were better. But we didn’t take our chances when we got them and managed to give a goal away.”
Is that perhaps inevitable when there are so many changes to a team? "It’s not inevitable. It didn’t look inevitable until that goal went in. If we don’t take our chances, if we don’t score, don’t get beat, but we did.”
McCarthy cited January signing Danny Rowe’s performance as a plus to be taken from the match.
"We had three midfielders at the start and Toums, Bish and Doz didn’t dominate that, their lads in midfield coped with that,” he said.
"I changed it to 4-4-2 and I thought Dominic Samuel showed a bit at times but Danny Rowe I thought was a real bright spark out of all of it, a positive.
"He came and he had a slight knock, then he came in and he was impressing everybody. Then he got injured again.
"And for the last two or three weeks he has been great in training. I was that close to playing him at Burton, but it wasn’t a debut day that, at Burton, and as it turned out that proved to be right. Newcastle wasn’t either.
"Today was and he’ll be pleased with his debut, I think. I am, I’m certainly pleased with him, he’ll be a player for us.”
Regarding Andre Dozzell, he added: "He’s a good player Dozzer, I’m not sure we dictated that midfield even with the quality we had in it. But he’s got some lovely subtle touches and he’s developing.
"There lies the problem, he is developing, he’s not the finished article yet, but when he is he’ll be a very good player.”
Was it a difficult decision to make as many changes as he did? "For the reasons I gave on Thursday it was, but the other side of that it wasn’t because I wanted to give some of them a chance.
"They’ve travelled up and down the country most of those but have not had much game time, sometimes sat in the stand, sometimes sat in the stands, watched all the others play.
"It was their opportunity, albeit slightly unfair, I get that because there were nine changes. It’s like playing a League Cup tie.
"I wasn’t being disrespectful to Rotherham, not in any way, shape or form. I was being respectful to my team and my squad and giving them a game and pretty much for most of it it was even-stevens.
"But I should congratulate Warney [Rotherham manager Paul Warne], I’m pleased for him because it’s great for him, it’s done him a whole world of good, I would imagine, in terms of him getting the job, keeping the job and for positives for next season.”
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McCarthy was pleased with Dean Gerken’s performance and penalty save: "There’s never a bad one, is there? It was a really good save, he’s a good keeper. He was ready to play.
"Bart has been brilliant this season, and pretty much a lot of that is down to Gerks because of the way they train, the way they work together. He gives him a lot to think about.
"He’s got to be on his toes, he’s got to play well, if he doesn’t Gerks comes in and he does that. He’s done nothing wrong, Gerks.
"He’s been pretty much a big part of how Bart’s played. And, of course, he’s come in and done well having not played in however long. He looked as if he’d played last week and the week before. He was very good.”
Millers boss Warne was pleased that his side had ended a run of 17 games without a victory, having been given the manager's job on a permanent basis earlier this month.
"It’s obviously nice to win a football match, it’s nice to keep a clean sheet, which is obviously important," he said.
"Ironically in the last four games since I’ve had the job, while the effort was there, I didn’t think we had as much quality as in the other three.
"I think that just shows what football’s like in the Championship. In the other games I think we deserved more points, we didn’t get them.
"Today, I’m not saying we didn’t deserve to win, but I could have seen the game go in any way.
"I’ve told the players I’m really proud of them the way they kept a clean sheet and got over the finishing line but I think they have to believe in themselves a bit more because they’ve got more to give.”