Man-of-the-match Harry Barbrook paid tribute to his teammates who took penalties and keeper Woody Williamson after Town’s U18s beat Nottingham Forest 4-2 in a shoot-out following a 1-1 draw after extra time to progress to round five of the FA Youth Cup and a home tie with Liverpool.
Left-back Barbrook, whose twin brother Fin was also in the team, was named man of the match for his display over the 120 minutes.
Reflecting on the game, the second-year scholar said: "First I’d like to say I thought Forest played really well, it was a great game, pushed us right to the end.
"I think both teams could have killed the game off, but I thought overall it was a very good game and buzzing to be in the next round and really happy to get man of the match.
"A lot of us out there played our hearts out, I think everyone individually put their all in and it’s good to get the reward in the end.”
He added: "The goal was just to play well and I think if we played well we knew we’d get the result and go through to the next round.
"It didn’t quite happen that way. I feel like we’ve still got more to improve on, we’ve still got more to work on and I think hopefully by Liverpool, which will be a great test, we’ll have worked on those things and we can put in an even more complete performance.”
Finlay Corrigan, Osman Foyo, Ashton Boswell and Rio Morgan, who earlier had given the Blues the lead, netted their penalties, with Tom Taylor the unlucky man who saw his spot-kick saved, while keeper Woody Williamson saved from Forest’s earlier scorer Esapa Osong.
"Huge respect to them, I think it takes a lot of courage to step up to take a penalty,” Barbrook said. "In the huddle, I think a few others wanted it, I felt like everyone wanted to step up for the team.
"I’d like to give a big shout out to Ashton Boswell, an U16 coming into the team and he slotted his penalty away perfectly. Big respect to him.”
Regarding first-year scholar keeper Williamson, he added: "Superb! Honestly, as a team, we stood there, we knew he was just going to come up and be the hero, and he was in the end. Woody was unbelievable tonight and we’ve got to thank him later.”
Looking ahead to the fifth-round tie against Liverpool, which will be played on a date yet to be set before Saturday 11th February, Barbrook said: "It will be a step above but it will be a great test, a great opportunity.
"At Portman Road I feel like if we give it everything, if we take the game to them, I feel like we’ve got a great chance. See you there!”