Walsall Assistant and Development Coach Brian Dutton feels the young players involved in Tuesday's friendly against Birmingham City will have learned a lot from the experience.
A young looking Saddlers line-up fell to a 3-0 defeat against the Championship side in their final pre-season friendly ahead of the start of the competitive season in the Carabao Cup against Sheffield Wednesday on Saturday.
The likes of Sam Perry, Tom Leak, Joe Willis, Joe Foulkes and Jayden Campbell were all involved during the game and Dutton felt it was a particularly good learning experience for them all.
"They'll learn a lot from that, playing against seasoned professionals," Dutton said.
"They pick up all sorts of tricks of the trade so it's a great exercise for the young boys. They'll also get up to speed with the intensity of professional football because, it's a whole different ball game compared to playing in the Under 18s."
A large number of first team regulars were not involved on Tuesday but they were all in attendance and Dutton feels that having watched Birmingham, they will have got a bit of a flavour of what to expect when they take on Sheffield Wednesday.
"We had, I don't want to call them first team boys because the shirts are up for grabs at the minute, a lot of players who would threaten the starting XI who didn't take part but they were here for a training session, to watch the game and see how talented the Championship sides are," he explained.
"They can see that if you give the ball away cheaply, they can really hurt you on the transition so it was good for them to watch in because that's what they are going to be what they are coming up against at the weekend."
Watch Dutton's full interview on our YouTube Channel - link above.