George Moncur is adamant that Sunday's 5-0 FA Cup with Budweiser reverse at Nottingham Forest will not dampen optimism in West Ham United's Development Squad.
In all, eight of the Club's youngsters featured at the City Ground, including a total of five debutants, as the Hammers were eventually overpowered by their experienced hosts.
But despite the scoreline, the 20-year-old midfielder reckons he and his Under-21 colleagues can still take a great deal from the experience, certain that confidence has not taken a hit.
"Obviously you can still take positives from the game," he told whufc.com. "Having come to this stadium, we'll take things from the experience, because a lot of us haven't really played for the first team. We'll remember this and learn from it."
In fact, Moncur thought his contemporaries had plenty to be proud of, for the first hour at least, as the Hammers fought gamely to recover from an early penalty award.
Though it was Moncur himself who felled Jamie Paterson for the spot-kick, undeterred he went onto to put in a mature display, before being substituted ten minutes into the second period.
He continued: "I gave away the penalty which didn't help at all and it was stupid to be fair. But I thought that afterwards we settled in well and we definitely had chances, we were pushing on in the game.
"I created a few opportunities and I thought I did quite well. It's nice to be able to do that out here and when you're doing some good stuff, confidence does grow."
Moncur's effort is blocked by Jamaal Lascelles
As for the late flurry of Forest goals, Moncur admitted fatigue had likely played its part, with the Development Squad having not played a competitive fixture since 2 December.
"Maybe we did get tired, because to be fair there were a lot of Under-21s playing for us and we haven't had a game for a while, so I think that was probably played its part. They're playing week in week out at the moment, so fitness and fatigue probably came into it for us."
Result aside, Moncur was thankful to have been handed his chance, a first start and only his second appearance for the Club. Similarly, to share the experience with his friends and team-mates made it all the more memorable.
"It's great, because you're playing with them week in week out and it's really nice to be playing with them all together on one big stage," he added.
"I play with Seb [Lletget] and Danny [Whitehead] in our normal midfield and I thought both of them did really well on Sunday. They can take great credit from it. I really enjoy playing with them in the U21s and they're great players.
"The result won't knock our confidence at all. Whatever happened on Sunday, we'll take the positives and just push on from there."