Despite enduring a worse than expected season on the field, Thomas is confident the club will prosper in the NPL Victoria competition.

Bendigo City suffered arguably its worst loss of the season on Saturday when it fell to east conference strugglers Springvale 1-0.

The result left Bendigo in eighth place on the west conference ladder with five wins from 19 games.

“It’s been a difficult season,’’ Thomas said.

“It’s been harder than I thought it was going to be.

“With such a small squad and players being injured, it’s been very tough at times. We’re not in a position to pay the sort of money that Melbourne clubs can offer and we don’t want to go down that track anyway.

“For the betterment of the club financially we’ve had to go with a small squad. Our aim is to build on this for next year and we’ll blood some young players for the rest of this year.

“The club has some very good juniors coming through the system, particularly in the under-16s. It’s exciting for the club that we have some good kids coming through.”

Thomas said the loss to Springvale on Saturday was a tough pill to swallow.

“After making big improvements the past three weeks it was a big let down on Saturday,’’ Thomas admitted.

“The attitude of the players wasn’t good and we copped the penalty for it. Their goal came from a turnover in our own half and we had plenty of chances to score, but we didn’t take them.”

Meanwhile, the Bendigo City FC juniors had a successful day against Sunshine George Cross on Saturday.

The under-16s won 3-1 on the back of goals from Adam Dwyer, Matt Sporle and September Htoo. The under-12s won 4-1, with Corey Hogan scoring a brace and Kane Ralston and Tom Whitehead one goal each. 

The under-14s drew 2-2 thanks to two goals from Jesse Matthews, while the under-13s and under-15s lost 4-1 and 5-1 respectively. Will Beever scored for the under-13s and Luke Burns for the under-15s.