Prior to the kick-off there was a minute’s silence in memory of former Coventry and England striker, Cyrille Regis, who passed away earlier in the day.
The home side soon went into an early lead with two goals in a minute to take an early advantage as early as the 10th minute, with Stuart Beavon opening the scoring for City as he headed home a Ryan Haynes cross from the left.
Palace didn’t have time to recover before Josh Barrett was increasing the lead after he got on the end of a ball across the box from Ben Stevenson and his effort beat Dion-Curtis Henry in the visitors’ goal.
Just past the half hour mark Barrett scored his second of the afternoon as he picked up a ball at the back post and cut inside before firing powerfully home, and four minutes later Freddie Ladapo had an opportunity to get a goal back but Liam O Brien was forced into a good save at his near post.
However the goals continued to go in at the other end as a pass from Jack Hickman found Jordan Ponticelli who raced away and took his opportunity well as he chipped the ball over the goalkeeper into the net, and two minutes before the break the same player made it 5-0 as he was put through clear on goal with a fine pass and he made no mistake.
After the restart Palace nearly got one back as Ladapo got on the end of a cross but saw that saved by O Brien, but the Eagles’ goal was to come on 69 minutes and it was scored by Nya Kirby after Jason Lokilo was denied when his shot from distance was well saved.
But a bad afternoon for the under-23s was complete with four minutes to go when Barrett completed his hat-trick. Haynes saw his shot saved by Henry but the ball was only parried back into play, and Barrett put the rebound into the net to round off the scoring.