Graham Turner’s thoughts after the FA Cup defeat at Hereford United
Town’s FA Cup run came to an abrupt end after going down 3-1 to Hereford United at Edgar Street. Town got off to the worst start possible by going 2-0 down with barely 10 minutes on the clock. Luke Summerfield grabbed a goal back midway through the first half and after that it looked like Town could get something from the game. After the restart though Town didn’t continue that good work and they barely tested the Hereford goal, and to make matters worse Hereford netted a third goal from the penalty spot.
After the game Town manager Graham Turner spoke to the press to give his thoughts on the game
Sum up your disappointment after that result...
It’s difficult to explain where we are going wrong in the early stages of a match, I think that's 4 in 5 games we have conceded in the first 5 minutes, then the second one just compounds the problems and you can’t give teams a start no matter what the standard. It lifts the crowd, it lifts the players and we go down a notch or two and we're chasing the game. After that we had a lot of the ball, we had one or two opportunities, we can count ourselves unlucky with the penalty decision against us and we've hit the woodwork a couple of times. But that counts for nothing, we're out of the F.A. Cup at the first round with defensively a very poor performance.
On Hereford’s performance.
I think we've contributed to their victory, we can’t disguise that. They've worked hard for their victory but at this stage it's about what we've done or what we haven't done and we're out of the F.A, Cup.
On the second half performance from Town...
Well I think for the whole of the game apart from the first 12 minutes we enjoyed a lot of possession. We enjoyed good positions with the ball, particularly out wide on Jon Taylor’s side and he made a lot of crosses, some of them decent crosses. So the overall level of the performance reflected that first 12 minutes.
On losing at Hereford....
I think for the supporters there's that element of a local derby and I’m sure they're hurting on their way up the A49 but not half as much as me. It doesn't matter who we were playing, we're out of the F.A. Cup and for me that is devastating.
On what needs improving...
There are things we have got to get better with and we've got to start defending better. When you look at the last few games, although we've not conceded too many chances, too many times the ball has ended up in our net. So starting with Bournemouth on Tuesday, we've got to get our defending sorted out and stop conceding goals.
On the week ahead.
It's a big week for us! It is a tough week and it's going to be a tough weekend, but we'll have a look at the DVD tomorrow and look where we have gone wrong and we've got to put it right on Tuesday. But equally the players have got to step forward and start performing better than today, against Yeovil and in one or two other matches.