Gillingham’s stand-in boss Richard Dobson was disappointed to lose on Tuesday but delighted with the lessons learned by many of their young players.

In their first EFL Trophy game last month, the Gills beat Fulham under-21s 4-1, with many of their young players making the headlines, but things were different on Tuesday as they faced a seasoned Colchester United team.

Report: Colchester 2 Gillingham 1

The home side got their winning goals late on as they were able to put top-quality players on at League 2 level against a Gills side who finished with an experienced team. That told in the end, as Colchester won 2-1, but it was a great learning experience.

“I thought Colchester showed great respect for the competition in terms of the side that they put out,” said Dobson, who remains in charge while Gareth Ainsworth recovers from heart surgery.

“I told the boys before the game that it would be very different to the last round and the Fulham under-21 side.

“We knew it was going to be a quicker pace, a lot more physical, and it was a really good test.

“I looked at their team sheet [before the match] and it was stronger than I expected them to be.

“You can pat yourself on the back because you beat Fulham's 21s, but how many of Fulham's under 21s would play in League 2 on a regular basis with this sort of physicality and the intensity of the games?

“This was good for our boys, they need it, they need to understand, they need to learn about the levels and they need to know where they're just short, if they are short.

“We obviously send them out on loan to understand and cope with the tougher side of the game.

“They get knocked about a little bit in non-league football, but in League 2 there's good technique, there's good quality alongside good physical specimens and they've got to learn to become the whole package.”

The Gills led after 15 minutes through Sam Vokes - one of several experienced players who started the match - but Dobson introduced more young players as the game progressed.

Towards the end they had teenagers Cruz Beszant, Travis Akomeah, Logan Dobbs, Harry Waldock, Harry Bridle and Louie Dayal all playing together.

In contrast, Colchester introduced more experienced players and one of those scored the winner, Arthur Read, burying a 92nd minute penalty after he’d been tripped in the box by Bridle. Seven minutes earlier Micah Mbick had equalised.

“It was a tough night for them,” Dobson admitted.

“They've had to suffer a little bit, but when you look at what we're trying to do with this competition and develop players, would you rather roll over a young Colchester side quite comfortably, give yourself a pat on the back and think that everything's fine, or do you want them to come in and suffer a little bit against first-team-ready players who play at a good pace and learn what it takes to play League 2 football on a regular basis?

“Those [Colchester players] are good players, and they're game-ready because they're playing regular first-team football.

“It was a real test for those young boys but we have to expose them. They have to understand what it's going to take to play first-team football, and you do it in a competition where there's no real damage to the club.

“We obviously want to pick up points in the league, and that's the most important thing, but as we've said from the very start, this is a journey, and getting those boys to that point isn't going to happen immediately.

“We need to do it over time. Joe Dunne's done a great job with the youth team. We've got good players that we feel could have good careers in the game, but it's step-by-step, and they're not at the top step just yet.

“We've got young players who are coming in that have been on loan, that have played youth team football, and the pace of that is nothing like this.

“This competition is there to help us blood those young players, to bring them up to the speed that they need to get to to be ready for League 2 football, and also we've got players coming back from injury that need to get themselves up to the speed for our first-team games come the weekend.”

Colchester had a dominant spell in the second half as they searched for an equaliser and the Gills looked like they had got through it, almost getting a second goal when Dobbs got on the end of Josh Andrews’ pass, but his shot at the far post came off the outside of the woodwork.

“We counter-attacked reasonably well,” Dobson said. “Our defensive shape was tested, but I thought that the exposure to that was good, with the older heads in there, they rotated the defensive positions and Vokesy filled in for us at times.

“There's just that little bit of experience about having the likes of Max Clark on the pitch and Remeao Hutton, people like that, that we probably lose when they come off. That's stuff that the younger boys will get in time and with plenty of games. But that experience counts for a lot.

“You can see the difference when we take those players off and they put their first-team players on and all of a sudden you see the gulf.”