Lincoln United interim manager Dave Frecklington was “pleased with the performance” despite being eliminated from the Lincolnshire Senior County Cup semi-final following a 3-1 defeat to Boston United last night.
The Whites found themselves a goal behind at the break after a Heath Richardson mistake in the closing minutes allowed Liam Waldcock to impressively lift the ball over the goalkeeper from a tight angle.
Despite that Frecklington still said: “First half I was pleased with the performance, if you take the mistake out of the game.”
The side did then find a lifeline in the second half as Lewis Smalley headed home from close range, however a brace from Luca Alonzi put the game to bed late on.
Frecklington then went on to say: “It’s disappointing to lose but we’re more focussed on the league fixtures so it’s good to get minutes into players.
“I think they performed really well tonight, Lewis Smalley, Harry Millard and the Trialist all came in tonight so it was good to get minutes into the team.”
On the reasoning behind that rotation the 49-year-old said: “Connor’s got a knock, we know that he’s been excellent recently, Charlie Carlisle and Billy Bradley were both cup-tied.”
However, the latter of the pair did line up for the visitor’s as part of his work-experience loan deal and Frecklington reiterated the importance of getting minutes to his players.
“We’ve got fixtures now where we’re going to need everybody, so we just wanted to get through the game unharmed.
“We made a few mistakes tonight which wasn’t look us so its important to get those out in games like this so we can learn going into Saturday.
“We don’t really concede many and when we have tonight it was down to mistakes rather than good play so we now need to irradicate those and move on.”
Another one of those mistakes, came as the Whites conceded their second of the game when a clumsy tackle from Jack Dando allowed Alonzi to turn home from the spot.
Frecklington agreed with the decision when he said: “I thought it was a penalty, Dando has got to clear that but we’re not going to hold that against him because he’s been unbelievable for us.
“I just want to get those mistakes out of us because I’d rather that happen tonight than in a league game and it’s a good reminder to stick to what you’re good at.
“We need to play the percentages at certain times because otherwise you get punished.”