Manager James Jepson was left frustrated but admitted his Hinckley AFC side weren’t good enough in their 3-2 defeat to league leaders Lichfield City.
AFC fell to their second home defeat of the season at the Welfare Ground despite taking a first minute lead through Jordan Wilson.
And Jepson was frustrated at a number of things not happening for his side.
He said: “Jordan put us ahead early on, and at that stage you feel like it could be an afternoon where things go right for you.
“But for whatever reason, things just didn’t happen for us after that. Prior to that we’d beaten Littleton and should have beaten a good Studley side, so we had hopes of building an unbeaten run.
“But against Lichfield we just didn’t turn up.
“We felt that two of their goals shouldn’t have stood, one for offside and one went out of play. But ultimately if they didn’t stand, did we deserve to win 2-1? No, because we didn’t play well.
“So we felt on the rough end of a few decisions but sometimes you create your own luck and at the end of the day we weren’t good enough.”
After a big turnover of players in the squad over the last couple of weeks, the former Rugby Town boss now wants his side to gain more consistency.
He feels greater continuity in the personnel week in, week out, will help his side get more consistent results.
“We’ve had a change of circumstances within the squad and the club, and a few players have left that I didn’t want to lose.
“But we’ve had to cut our cloth accordingly and we have to build momentum. From the first game until match six we had similar squads, but the last four weeks we’ve had different ones.
“We need to gain a bit of continuity within the squad – which will hopefully start when we get Sam Belcher back next week.”
Jepson brought himself off at half time in place of the fresh-legged 18-year-old Ollie Hart, but admitted he could have changed anyone after a lacklustre first half.
And when Joe McLaughlin brought the game back to 3-2 with half an hour to play, Hinckley had hope of a result – until Kieran Harrison’s red card.
“I decided to bring myself off, change formation and get bodies forward, and we managed to get a goal.
“With 20 minutes left we felt like we had a chance, whether we deserved it or not, and then Kieran was sent off.
“He went up for a half challenge, half block, and the ref gave him a straight red. It was silly really. It was a foul, but Kieran didn’t mean to foul him and there was no force behind it.
“And that red killed our momentum. We had a go with ten men but it wasn’t enough.”
