Allinson laments loss at Totton
Lee Allinson said frustration was his biggest feeling after Hemel Hempstead Town were beaten 2-1 at AFC Totton on Saturday.
The hosts led 2-0 after 26 minutes before Millar Matthews-Lewis pulled a goal back before half-time.
But the Tudors couldn’t find an equaliser and Allinson told the club’s media the poor start was key.
He said: “Frustration is my feeling. What we’re really good at is being honest, hard-working, defending our goal well, clearing our ball, winning our tackles and headers, but for the first 20 minutes – I don’t know if we just thought that we’ve just got to turn up to win.
"And when we play like that we’re not very good and for 20 minutes I thought we were really, really poor. I could have told you after 30 seconds what was going to happen when two players jumped out of a tackle – it kind of tells you where you’re at.
“Then after 20-25 minutes I felt something clicked in us and I thought we were very good, and it was similar to the Dagenham game, albeit worse because of the way we started.
"We didn’t win our personal battles and didn’t get a foothold in the game, and when you do that you’re going to struggle against any team.
"Totton are a good side, Jimmy has got them well organised here and I thought it was two good sides trying to win the game.
"Games are won and lost and we’ve lost it in the first 20 minutes today and that’s really disappointing.
“We had a go. We've hit the post, we've had couple of really good chances and caused them problems – we’ve opened them up and they’ve opened up us up. Well done to Totton, they deserved it because of what they did to us and took their chances and we didn’t.”
Hemel returned to action on Tuesday night at Hampton & Richmond, after this week’s Gazette had gone to press.
On Saturday, they then host Bath City, ahead of the trip to Wigan Athletic in the FA Cup which has been confirmed as taking place on Saturday, November 1 at 3pm.