Joint Manager Courtney Hunter-Belford reflected with “immense pride” in his Hinckley AFC side’s performance despite falling to a first defeat of the season against Aylestone Park.
Hinckley were a man down for more than 80 minutes after Zaki Evans’ hugely controversial early red card, but defended manfully against a side who won their opening league game 7-1 on Friday night.
In the end, a Justin Peace header from a corner two minutes into first-half stoppage time won the game for Aylestone.
But Hunter-Belford felt his side stuck to the gameplan superbly and, had they take one of their second-half chances, could have grabbed a point.
He said: “We wanted to keep it at 1-0 for as long as we could and just try and get one chance. We ended up with two. They had lots of play and they were always going to have that, but we defended unbelievably well. We were organised, and determined to keep the ball out of the net.
“We gave ourselves a chance and nearly did it. But credit to them, they’re a really good side full of endeavour and they’ll be challenging up there this year.
“But we have immense pride. We couldn’t ask any more of them. They did as much as they could to try and win and we shook everyone’s hand when they walked in the door.”
With Hinckley a man down after less than 10 minute against the title favourites, the manager felt that could have been game over as a spectacle – but said the way his side stuck in there gave him great pride.
“You’d think so, against a side with as much quality as that. Then as we got closer to half-time we wanted to re-jig it and reset. But we conceded from a set piece a minute before half-time so that’s disappointing.
“The lads are out of their feet, they worked their nuts off to try to stifle Aylestone, force them wide and stop them getting clear chances. I don’t think we were ever not going to concede but we did well to keep it at one.
“The game then flips on its head in the last 10 minutes because they’re thinking about making mistakes. We had two chances, Joe’s was a fantastic chance and you wouldn’t want it to fall to anyone else. Then Barber’s header at the end from a fantastic delivery from Jonesy.
“So it was just not meant to be but we can’t praise the lads enough for an unbelievable shift. There’s plenty of positives in that definitely.”
In the end, the two major decisions were Evans’ red card and the decision not to send off Aylestone defender Andres Articolo when he fouled Josh Beeson, who was bearing down on goal.
Hunter-Belford says he didn’t speak to the officials afterwards but was disappointed that the game was changed so drastically so early on.
“I never speak to the officials at this level. They’re human and make mistakes. But what I’ll say with Zaki’s is that it’s 10 minutes into the game, there’s a big crowd, take common sense into decisions. I’ve seen it back and it’s definitely not a red card.
“The others were both red cards, Jack’s tackle is reckless and their lad reacted to it. The one with Josh, I wasn’t in line enough to know whether it should have been a red.
“But you don’t want anybody to get sent off. You want these games to be open and free-flowing. You’ve got two good sides, the staff get on with each other really well. We’ve got full respect for them and vice versa. You just want to go toe-to-toe and see who will come out on top.
“We’ve been up against it all night but we did as much as we can.”
