Dave Challinor says Stockport’s youngsters must learn from their drubbing against Rovers and use it as part of their development.

The Hatters named a youthful side and Challinor admitted some players were like “rabbits in headlights” against Championship opposition.

“It is a huge learning curve for them and what they take out of tonight, in certain aspects, will dictate how far they go - whether they use it as motivation to understand the levels you need to be at,” he told the club channels.

“What you want to see is, ‘Go and make an impact’. Bruno (Cina) should never have been booked in the second half, but go and put someone on their backside!

“As much as you have respect for opposition because they are a higher level, they couldn’t stop us competing, tackling and doing all those bits. That is the minimum you have to do.

“He showed that in glimpses and if they had all done that, maybe it would have been a bit feistier and helped us a little bit.

“There will always be ones who react in different ways. Did some look like rabbits in headlights? Absolutely.

“Did some of them come out of it with some credit? Of course, they made mistakes but I expected that.”

Stockport made 10 changes from the side that beat Cambridge 2-0 on the opening day of the League One season several days prior.

“When you take everything away, regardless of the score, it is a great experience for them and one they will remember, whether than is fondly or not,” Challinor continued.

“But you still need to do the basics and you have to be able to do your jobs, regardless of what level you are playing at. That will be one they can learn from.”

He added: “Where we expecting the outcome? We probably were. You hope that isn’t going to be the case.

“But if you take the optimism out of it, the reality is they have played a very strong Championship team and we have played in large parts our youth team. The gap was always going to be enormous.”