Gary McCann was pleased with the effort and performance despite losing at Bognor Regis yesterday afternoon.

He said, "I thought we stood toe-to-toe with one of the form teams in our League and gave a really good account of ourselves. The players put in a really good shift and worked very hard. We made two mistakes down in the first half and they punished us clinically.

"But in the second half, I thought we were the better team for the first 15-20 minutes but couldn't find a way through. We created some good chances and had them on the back foot.

“After the sending off we had to go into damage limitation mode. I didn't want us to suffer a hammering because we didn't deserve it. We had to change things because playing 10 against 11, when they are such a good passing team, could have resulted in a much worse scoreline.

"The most disappointing thing about the red card was that it ruined what had been a very intriguing and open contest. I felt if we had scored once we might well have been able to put them under pressure and get a second.

"I must also mention the pitch which was superb even after the heavy rain that fell on it during the first half. It was the best surface we have played on for a long while and I can see why players want to come and play there. It suits the way they play and it suited us too."