Blyth Spartans manager Lee Clark believes individuals errors cost his side all three points at Kettering on Saturday afternoon in National League North.
Spartans led 3-0 at half-time courtesy of a Callum Roberts brace and returning goal from substitute Ryan Hutchinson.
However, the visitors allowed the Poppies back into the game – bringing the scoreline to 3-2 before a sublime solo goal from Roberts saw him complete his hat-trick.
Indeed, Paul Cox’s men did go on to complete the comeback following Tre Mitford’s 90th-minute leveller – 15 minutes after the home side hit back at 4-3.
Clark admitted: “Travelling after the game, it felt like a defeat but in the cold light of day, it keeps the unbeaten run going. Our attacking play was excellent and we haven’t been carved open.
“We haven’t been done by our own individual errors in terms of the goals.
“We’ve succumbed to two – possibly three – set plays and two of those were down to us concerning cheap corner kicks and then not dealing with them.
“We weren’t outplayed, we weren’t outfought. It was just as individuals, we made errors that cost us goals whereas we had to score four top quality goals.
“Even in the second-half we’ve hit the post and created more good chances. When you score four goals away from home, you expect to be travelling back with three points.
“You can see we have developed. We’ve built a new squad and since we’ve made the changes, we’ve been a very strong attacking team. And up until recently, we had been doing a lot better defensively.
“We accept that the individual errors have happened but we just have to move on and deliver the same attacking performance on Tuesday and cut out the mistakes defensively.”
Clark has called on his players to learn from the experience and take the positives into Tuesday night’s trip to Boston United.
“You’re never comfortable in football,” he said. “Never.
“Until the final whistle blows, you have to keep pushing. Their first goal shouldn’t have given them the momentum – we should have puffed our chests out and gone again.
“We showed a little bit of disappointment and they got a hold of that. We went 4-2 up to get ourselves out of jail but let them back into it. It was disappointing and frustrating.
“We are unbeaten in our last five league games – so there are a lot of things that are important and impressive for us. We have to keep believing and take the positives.
“Of course we’re disappointed but it’s not all doom and gloom. We understand why we haven’t won, which is individual errors. We haven’t dropped the points because we’ve been poor as a team.”