Glyn Hodges felt that key decisions by the match officials went against his side last night, but he was disappointed with the response to falling behind.
Our manager insisted that Cheye Alexander’s challenge on James Brophy was not a foul, an incident that led to Leyton Orient taking the lead, and going onto win the Trophy match 2-0. However, Glyn expected a better reaction from his players after Orient took the lead.
Glyn said: “We started off fantastic and we looked sharp, moving the ball around well and bossing it, but then came the mistakes: a foul on Anthony that the referee didn’t give, the bounce ball when he didn’t know what he was giving. We didn’t recover and he has given a penalty that wasn’t a penalty. There was that passage of play that killed us. We never recovered after that, they got their tails up, and we went backwards for some reason.
“When we went 1-0 down I still thought we would be all right, but we went backwards and they went forward. I was disappointed with our reaction after the goal. It’s just our reaction to setbacks that we have to improve upon.”
A real positive on the night was a return for Jack Rudoni, who made his first appearance of the season, and Glyn believes he can be a real asset to the squad.
“I just wanted to get him on the pitch. He has missed so much football and he’s a good player. We were looking to give him half an hour, but after the first-half display I thought I would give him 45 minutes because we may need him in the first-team soon.
“Jack had a chance at the end, which would have made it an interesting finish if he had scored. We definitely lacked a cutting edge, we huffed and puffed. We got in some great positions in the first-half, and it was just a case of finding a blue shirt in key areas, but it didn’t happen. It was disappointing.”
Keep an eye on our social media channels and on the official website later for an interview with Jack Rudoni.