SOUTH Park manager Joe McElligott was "disappointed" with the way his side defended as they went down 3-2 to Horsham on Tuesday night.
Chris Smith scored a brace for the Sparks but Richie Welch and Trevor McCreadie scored from open play for the Hornets, before Tony Nwachukwu netted a controversial free-kick from inside the South Park penalty area.
And McElligott believes his side should have defended better.
"I was disappointed because we have conceded three poor goals," McElligott said.
"We gifted them the goals, not one was a particularly good goal. I suppose the second one you can give them a little bit of credit for but we still didn't attack it defensively.
"We had plenty of chances in the first half and plenty of possession in the second half and on another day we would have converted more chances but on this occasion we didn't, and made the price for it.
"They have won four out of their last six, so we know they have picked up a little bit of form recently and we knew going into the game it wasn't going to be easy.
"It's just disappointing that we didn't get what we wanted out of the game and certainly I hoped we would have defended better than we did."
The winning goal was scored after South Park keeper James Wastell was reprimanded for handling a Jack Higgins back-pass, leading to Horsham being awarded a free-kick ten yards from the Sparks' goal.
And McElligott believes the decision was "harsh".
"It was a strange scenario. I thought it was a bit harsh," he said. "Wastell was two yards away so it's a bit like the old handball or ball-hand situation. I thought it was harsh to give the free-kick in that situation but I suppose if the boot had been on the other foot, I would have probably been screaming for the opportunity as well."
