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Ian Holloway has slammed some of his Grimsby Town players for what he described as an “awful” performance in Tuesday’s reserves game.

The Mariners’ second string drew 1-1 with Doncaster Rovers Under-23s at Blundell Park earlier this week, as Holloway looked to give some of the members of his first team squad some vital minutes.

Matt Green got Town’s goal in the second half after Rovers struck in the first minute of the game, while the likes of Ludvig Öhman, Bradley Garmston, Max Wright, Harry Clifton and James Tilley all featured.

Holloway, though, was left less than impressed by his side’s display.

Asked what he made of the reserves’ performance, Holloway told Grimsby Live: “Awful.

“They’ve learnt from that, I told them what I felt. I didn’t expect to see that because we arranged that so they could have a day of work, and they didn’t work in the first half, so I’ve made them do that today.

“Second half, don’t get me wrong, was much, much better, but I didn’t expect to see what I saw in the first half. It didn’t look like my team.

“But never mind, that happens sometimes. Sometimes you use that in a positive way, so we’ll see. It’s all about the weekend, it’s about next week, it’s all about trying to deal with game after game, and reaching a level that’s acceptable to me, that I believe we should be producing. We’ll have to wait and see.”

Holloway added: “I didn’t see anything like I wanted to see in the first 45 minutes, so for me they’ve wasted their life in that first 45 minutes.

“They’ve wasted their opportunity to show me what they’ve listened to, what they’ve learnt. They didn’t apply themselves in the right way, and I thought they knew that.

“It’s quite a vital lesson for all of us at this football club for me to get my point across of what I do expect and why I expect that. Standards of effort, and clarity of what your job is.

“That can get a little bit clouded when you feel like you’ve done quite well, and then you’re not in an arena that you probably want to be in, then you don’t apply yourself in the same way.

“That was a training session for them to show me that they wanted to be in my first team, so it didn’t go very well.”

Ahead of the game, Holloway had spoken about wanting to be given some selection headaches ahead of Saturday’s clash with league leaders Swindon.

It seems though that Tuesday’s game has made his team selection at the County Ground a lot easier.

“I haven’t got any headaches,” said Holloway. “Well, I have, but it’s of the wrong sort.”