A second half strike from Peter Gwargis was the difference between the two sides on the south coast, and the coach praised the application and work of his players following the impressive success over the Gunners this evening.
He said, “I think the first half was a good game of football against a very good side who had players who’ve been around the Arsenal first-team setup.
“We knew it would be tough but we more than matched them in every aspect of the game - credit has to go to the players because their work rate was very good and we had lots of quality about us.
“We wanted to be disciplined, tight and press at the right times, we did that well. The only disappointing thing was not making more of the opportunities that we created.
“But overall it’s a really good result and we can be happy with a number of aspects from the performance.”
Rusk was also keen to highlight the youthfulness of the group he currently has at his disposal, and gave them plaudits for the results during the past few days.
Gwargis was also on the scoresheet on Monday evening during a hard-fought 1-1 draw with Wolves, and the boss reflected on a successful week.
“The group is young this year and I’d say we’ve evolved,” he continued.
“We have a lot of the under-18 group coming through and we’re considerably younger in general than we have been in recent times, but that’s a good thing.
“The challenge will always be keeping an element of consistency so that the boys can continue to form relationships on the pitch, but we’re never going to have a settled side completely because of how the age group works.
“But I have to give credit to the players who have come in and it’s created really good competition. It’s been a good week, we’ve had some difficult games recently and to bounce back with Monday night and then this evening is something we have to be really happy with.”