Sunderland whizkid Ryan Noble hit a hat-trick in their 7-2 FA Youth Cup victory over Sheffield Wednesday this week.

While coach Kevin Ball praised his players for their performance, he revealed it wasn't the best he's seen from his young charges this season.

"Putting everything into perspective, we knew Sheffield would raise our game after we beat them [6-0 away] earlier in the season and we knew we had to get any complacency out of the players' heads following that result," he told safc.com after the game.

"We were also a lot younger than them tonight, which can be an important factor. We did okay tonight, it wasn't the best we've played and although we scored some fantastic goals we didn't pass the ball as well as I would have liked.

"That sounds a little bit ungrateful. For me winning is a byproduct of doing things right and we must have done something right to win like we did.

"I'm a bit of a perfectionist and sometimes I have to hold up and just analyse things. Second half we had a little blip when a decision from the keeper resulted in a goal - other than that I thought he did smashing and made some good saves."