Hinckley manager Joe Conneely felt his side didn’t do enough to win their Emirates FA Cup tie against Wolves Casuals.
AFC exited the competition at the first hurdle as Casuals overturned Tarique Hunter’s fine opener on debut against his former club.
That broke the deadlock ten minutes into the second half but Conneely felt his side’s first half performance put their backs against the wall.
He said: “”We scored a brilliant goal early in the second half but we were shocking in the first half. It was very similar to Lichfield last week. We were lazy, sluggish, lethargic.
“Not just off the ball but on it too. We didn’t want to get high enough to create chances. They wanted us to be slow, they want to head and kick things, because that suits them and we played into it.
“There were overloads that we weren’t brave enough to try. We played the safest option which was disappointing and I’m annoyed with that.
“The game was there for the taking. We have enough to win the game but didn’t do enough to win the game.”
Hunter picked up the Steve Hardy Energy Assessor Man of the Match award for his performance that was capped with that debut goal.
But he was substituted shortly afterwards when on a yellow card in a move that Conneely said had to be made to protect the right back.
“It was a fantastic strike. But he’d been booked and committed another foul, so one more and he would have been sent off. So we had to protect him and take him off.
“He offers a lot going forward but we’re telling him to be braver, to get higher. He scored a really good goal and after that we’ve got to set our stall out for five minutes and see the game out from there. We conceded a horrendous goal, the lad had nobody around him.
“The second goal was straight after a drinks break where we told the lads if we can’t win it, make sure we take it to a replay. It was a shocking clearance but fair play because it was an unbelievable finish. But it came from our mistake.
“And the third comes when we’re chasing the game with another free header. We’re not commanding enough. They came with a gameplan and it worked.”
The nature of the goals conceded left the manager looking back to their defensive frailties last season.
But he’s grateful to only have a short turnaround before his side kick off their league campaign away to Dudley Town on Tuesday evening.
“It feels like we’ve gone back four months and we’re dealing with the exact same problems with a different squad.
“We’ve got to sort that out because I’m not accepting what we saw today.
“Luckily we haven’t got time to dwell on it. We have Dudley away quickly and we’ll put a team out that will put it right.”
