A solitary penalty from Connor Riley-Lowe gave Truro City a 1-0 win at St Albans City – with a disappointing Saints performance adding to manager Ian Allinson’s frustrations.
Much like the game against Chippenham Town two weeks earlier, this was a lacklustre City performance that only sprung into life late in the second half.
But unlike the match with the Bluebirds, City were already a goal down after the spot-kick 25 minutes into the first half.
And with the White Tigers defending solidly, Saints were unable to find a way through despite late pressure.
However, Allinson felt his team had not done enough to warrant a victory.
He said: “They did a job in the first half. They got plenty of bodies behind the ball and frustrated the living daylights out of us.
“But I didn’t think we started that well; I didn’t think we got to grips with the game and the performance was flat and it took us 20 minutes into the second half before we really got going again.
“That was when we started to create chances but we didn’t create too much and to be fair to them they didn’t create many chances either.
“It was quite a stalemate and I think 0-0 would have been a fair result.
“There was a good reaction in the last 25 minutes. I felt we started to get more of the ball and we shifted it quicker and got it forward more rather than side to side.
“There was too much tippy-tappy football in the first half. It was all too slow, nobody broke the lines and everybody wanted to go back and start again.
“We probably passed it back to the goalkeeper more than we’ve done all season.
“We didn’t have anyone out there with any energy. We didn’t have any players out there who wanted to fight for us and there were too many out there who were off their game.
“We didn’t work hard enough in the first half to win a game of football.
“And today we probably had six or seven who thought we only had to turn up to win.
“We have to liven up and we have to be brighter than that.”
Saints remain in the play-offs in sixth place but teams are beginning to queue up behind them with 12th-placed Wealdstone just five points further back.
And they now face a run of three consecutive away games, starting with a trip to Hungerford Town tomorrow night (Monday).
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