Tie of the round was not at all ‘entertaining’ for Peters
For the neutral, Saturday's FA
Cup first round tie at FC Halifax Town may well have been a thrilla-minute, edge of your seat ride, but for Magpies’ manager Alan Devonshire and his assistant
Ryan Peters, it was anything but entertaining.
Devonshire would have been both apoplectic and puzzled by his side's poor defending as they conceded seven goals in an 11-goal thriller to bow out of the competition at the first-round stage once again.
It was one of the stand-out matches in the country - at any level - on Saturday, and surely the tie of the round, but that will come as little consolation to Devonshire who'll be working overtime this week to figure out just what went wrong, and how he can put it right in time for Saturday's league visit of Dagenham & Redbridge to York Road.
It wasn't an all-time goals record for the competition. That was set all the way back in 1887 when Preston North End completed a 26-0 win over Hyde - coincidentally around the same time Maidenhead last reached the second round in this competition - but it was still a chastening display for the men in black and white.
Even Halifax boss Pete Wild said he'd rather not be involved in another game like that this season, so spare a thought for those in the visitors dressing room.
Again, there were some mitigating factors. The Magpies were hamstrung by injury, with Jay Mingi deputising at right back in the absence of Remy Clerima, Shaun Donnellan and Ryheem Sheckleford, however, while the balance of the team was indisputably disrupted, it can't excuse away the visitors' disastrous defending.
It wasn't all bad for the 84 Magpies fans who travelled north with the team. They saw their side trade blows with Halifax in the first half to some extent and Josh Kelly and Emile Acquah - who has struggled for form since arriving in the summer from Southend United - netted braces.
Acquah took his first goal, to make it 2-2, very well indeed, latching onto James Holden's long kick and turning his marker before firing home from the edge of the area. However, the lows far outweighed the highs and Peters admitted as much to the club's media officer, Grace Scott, after the final whistle.
“It was thrilling if you're a Halifax fan,” he said. “We've let in a lot of goals today, and when you need more than four goals to win a game it's telling.
“It’s strange that we’ve gone from beating Halifax at the start of the season and keeping things quite tight to allowing in as many goals as we have done today.
“As a team defensively, it wasn't great, and I think that's both sides.
“It was like one team scores and then the other team went right down the other end and scored.
It's not exactly what you want.
“As a fan or a neutral you'd want to see that, but for us far too many goals have been let in.”
The game was lost in the early stages of the second half, when Halifax scored two quick-fire goals to take a 6-3 lead. Jordan Slew, who Blackburn Rovers once signed for £1m, side-footed home their fifth and Billy Waters added a sixth with his second of the game. Kelly ran through to score a fine fourth for the Magpies, but Elliot Newby capped off the afternoon's scoring following some more mad cap defending from the Magpies in the 72nd minute.
Peters admitted the inquest into the defeat would begin on the coach journey back to Maidenhead, however, he expects the players to have shrugged off the disappointment by the time they return to training this week with a crucial game against the Daggers to focus on this weekend.
“We've got to get back on the coach, analyse the game and figure out what went wrong,” Peters added.
“The idea at half-time was to try and get a foothold in the game and try and get the midfield area centred, and at times we managed that to a degree, with Josh Kelly going through and scoring. But then they just went right up the other end and scored.
“Things are not quite right at the moment. We’ve got a young squad and it will be forgotten about very quickly.
“We’ll be back at training on Monday and then get focused on next Saturday now.”