With the Eagles naming different sides for the first and second halves, plus a raft of changes for the hosts at half-time, the match understandably lacked fluency at The Hive, with Courtney Senior’s impressive late strike settling the score in favour of Barnet.
Nevertheless, with the hosts having already played two pre-season games prior – and with Palace’s 23/24 pre-season opener falling just a week after returning to training – McCarthy feels that the nature of the match will aide the team’s preparations in that regard.
He told Palace TV: “They’re always difficult games for the lads. All we asked for was maximum effort, good commitment to what we’re trying to do, and we were pleased with some of the outcomes.
“It was an exercise on the back of a tough week’s training – the boys have only been back one week – so we’re pleased with a lot of bits from the evening.
“There are always going to be parts we can improve on, but we’re in the early stages of our pre-season. It’s our first match exposure and it was important we got through the game and the exercise unscathed.
“We knew it was going to be a tough ask coming here. Barnet are off the back of a couple of more weeks’ training. I was pleased with the guys’ application and we’ll certainly come out of the game a lot better than we were beforehand.”