Tommo: A Frustrating Night

Hinckley AFC assistant manager Paul Tomlinson described Tuesday night’s 3-3 draw with Pelsall Villa as ‘a very frustrating night’.

Tomlinson saw his side go 2-0 up in the first half courtesy of Sam Agar and Isaac Cooper, but collapsed at the back after the break to allow Pelsall to turn the game on its head.

Only Greg Pearson’s stoppage time leveller extended Hinckley’s unbeaten run and Tomlinson was far from happy with his side’s defending after the break.

He said: ‘I thought that we were excellent for the first 45 minutes, created numerous chances and should have been four of five nil up.

‘I don’t think they (Pelsall) could have had any complaints if we’d come in at half time with that scoreline, and ultimately we’ve paid for missing chances tonight.’

Tomlinson said AFC kept Pelsall in the game by not converting their chances, but couldn’t put his finger on what went wrong in the second half.

‘I think the first half was a relatively easy affair, with no disrespect to Pelsall, and I think we thought it’d be more of the same in the second half.

‘Maybe we thought we’d come out, our attacking flair would create more chances, but you have to give teams a lot of respect. Pelsall had nothing to lose in the second half, they had a right old go in the first ten minutes of it and put us on the back foot.

‘We’ve not been able to deal with it, it’s as simple as that. We’ve been very weak, mentally, defensively, as a unit tonight and we haven’t defended strongly like I would expect us to.

‘We’ve given simple goals away tonight and it’s a very, very disappointing night. I feel sorry for the fans who have paid to come in and see that. They’ve seen some good football in the first half and some good chances, but in the first 25 minutes of the second half we’ve let ourselves down.’