I’m not saying we should have won, but we did not deserve to lose 3-1. In fact, I thought we were the better side in the first half and deserved to go in ahead at the break.

Okay, perhaps we got a soft penalty to give us the lead, but the decision for their pen in first-half stoppage time was even worse.

The referee was utterly pedantic and whistle-happy throughout and I told him so afterwards. He ruined the game.

The sides in the northern section of this league are a different type of animal. I knew it was going to be tough and ugly and that was always a concern, but we were not found wanting in the aggression stakes. We stood toe to toe with Hednesford in the first 45 minutes.

We were simply undone by two bits of quality in the second half.

They had a good lad at centre back, but it was the trio of Brown, Clements and Robinson who changed the game.

For their second, Clements fed Brown, whose cross was headed in by Robinson and sometimes you just have to hold your hand up. If we had scored it, I would have called it a great goal.

At 2-1, I wanted just to consolidate for ten minutes and then perhaps we could have put four up front and thrown everything at them at the death.

But the third goal came too quickly and killed the game. It showed our naivety It’s is the only time I could be critical of my team all game.

We are attacking their box with a long throw from Tom Etheridge and 20 seconds later the ball is in the back of our net.

It was a complete breakaway, albeit with a quality finish by Brown.