West Briton (Camborne, Redruth, Hayle)
Wotton left disappointed with home defeat against Braintree
BOSS Paul Wotton felt his Truro City side were unfortunate to lose their National League South encounter at home to Braintree Town on Saturday.
Owing to three successive postponements, City took to the Bolitho Park pitch for the first time since their 4-1 defeat at home to high-flying Worthing a fortnight earlier, but were undone by two goals in the space of six second-half minutes as the Essex outfit triumphed 2-1.
“[It’s] disappointing,” Wotton told trurocity.co.uk. “On a difficult surface, I thought in the first half we played the better football, created the best chance of the first half and we looked Comfortable.
“I was disappointed with our second-half performance – with 25-30 minutes to go I thought we looked really leggy. It could be down to the fact we haven’t played, but we’ve trained hard enough so that was a little bit concerning.
“The first goal… it’s very fortunate that Tom [Harrison] has kicked it against the lad who scored. It wasn’t his finish, it’s a deflected goal, but we’ve got to deal with that much, much better.
“I thought that affected us, the first goal, and we got a bit raggedy for five or ten minutes and they scored their second goal, and every goal is a poor goal to concede but that was poor.
“At 2-0 we looked beat and I didn’t like that. We made a couple of subs and we scored and we’re on the front foot and giving it a go, but I think Braintree managed the game well in the last five or six minutes and we lacked a bit of quality in the final third.
“Overall, I’m not saying for one second that I think we should have won the game, but I definitely don’t think we should have lost the game.
“I heard their manager say that was fully deserved but I’m not so sure, I disagree with that. They were very professional in the way they saw the game out, so I’ll give them credit for that, definitely.”
With both sides cancelling each other out in the second half, it felt like it would take a moment of brilliance or a moment of fortune to break the deadlock, and unfortunately for City, Braintree benefitted from the latter in the 65th minute.
Countering from a City free-kick, Iron forward Aaron Blair bore down on goal until being dispossessed by a fine Tom Harrison tackle, which cannoned into substitute Davis’ leg and flew into the bottom corner of James Hamon’s net.
That stroke of luck gave the Iron a lift and they were celebrating a second goal only six minutes later, with Davis crossing for Pavey to thunder a header past Hamon from six yards out.
“It was a lucky goal, but we should have dealt with it,” Wotton said. “We’ve cleared the ball, it’s hit him and it’s gone in. I don’t think the lad knew much about it. But you can’t let things affect you too much on the football pitch.
“I get it, you’re disappointed, but then we concede the second goal and that is an uphill battle against a team that is going to sit in and defend well, as they did. I thought they defended their 18-yard box very well and that’s where we didn’t quite have that extra little bit [of quality] today [to break them down].
“The surface is a lot to do with it, the fact we haven’t played for a long time had a lot to do with it we’re a better team when we’re in our rhythm and playing games and got a bit of momentum going.”
City now have a rare full week off until Saturday’s trip to Hampton & Richmond Borough.