Daryl McMahon felt his side should have won after taking a 2-1 lead but conceded that his side got themselves into trouble for the equaliser.
“I thought we were well in control at 2-1 and then it was a little error with the ball when we turned it over in our own half,” McMahon told BBC Radio Kent’s Ben Watt. “And a big deflection for their goal. Disappointed because I think we probably should have seen the game out at that point.”
But the manager wasn’t too deflated, believing his side are competing in the higher division and getting better. “The important thing is we’re creating chances. I think we had a fair few second-half that we could have scored from but overall I’m pleased with the attacking, we need a bit of work defensively again, conceding too many cheap goals for us but we’ll get that right,” he said. “We reacted well to going a goal down, like we always do. We didn’t lack quality after that. I thought we were very good in possession of the ball second-half, we came out and played really well and then it’s just a kick in the teeth.”
McMahon thought Dean Rance’s second-half introduction gave his side a little more bite and helped curtail Mark Yeates and his midfield colleagues after the break. “I didn’t think we defended very well first-half, I don’t think we got near their midfield,” he explained. “Rancey gave us more balance in midfield, won more second balls and freed up Payne and Powell to get forward a bit more.”
The Fleet boss wasn’t overly worried by his side’s 15th place at this stage of the season and after nine games, considers it a decent start. “You look at Eastleigh and they’re probably the benchmark for us as a football club, they’ve been in the division three years and we’ve just come into it,” he said. “I think our remit was to go into the division and be competitive. I think we’ve been more than competitive so far, we’ve been very unlucky a number of times not to take three points, sometimes down to our own bad play that we need to improve. But we’re an evolving team. If you look at us, we’re very young. You’ve got Keds the only player in the group over 30, Eastleigh’s team has players with hundreds of League games, probably thousands.”
Fleet now take a midweek break before facing the trip to Chester and McMahon’s looking forward to a Tuesday night off: “With the schedule we’ve had, it’s a lot of games in a short period of time. It’s nice to give some people a break. When you have injuries there’s lots of players being forced to play lots of minutes as well as training. It’ll be nice to give the lads a little chill out, probably Monday and then Tuesday we’ll attack it again.”
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