Craig Dawson felt Watford's defeat to Newport County was a deserved on, after the Hornets were made to pay for a number of mistakes.

A youthful side were knocked out of the Carabao Cup on Tuesday evening, with Vladimir Ivic opting to rest a number of senior players ahead of a big game with Luton Town this weekend.

Dawson hopes his young teammates can quickly learn from their errors and get back to winning ways again soon.

“They [Newport] are a good side, they might be two leagues below us but they played well tonight and deserved the win in the end because we had too many mistakes in our camp and hopefully we can get rid of those errors," he told the club website.

“The second half we were much better, we started brighter and you could see the substitutions the manager made helped us, but it was disappointing to concede the third when we did and that took the wind out of us a little bit.

“It was a tough game, we made a few errors and it cost us. There were plenty of young lads on the pitch tonight so it was great experience for those guys and hopefully we can all learn from the mistakes."

Despite the result, Dawson felt the match helped some of his teammates develop some much needed fitness, which will be needed with a long season still ahead of them.

“We’ll take the positives and there are plenty of games coming up, so everybody needs to be ready and fully focused for the next game,” he said.

“Some of the lads have got 90 minutes tonight and that was important for some of us, so we’ll learn from tonight, take it on the chin and go again at the weekend.

“It’s all about recovery now so we’ll switch our attention to [the Luton] game and we know how important that game is, so we’ll be ready for it and up for it.”