Ford says Puritans must not dwell on last-gasp setback

Substitute Liam Brooks bagged the stoppage-time winner in Saturday’s 2-1 Evo-Stik League South defeat.

Matt Ball gave the Waders the early lead in Saturday’s premier division central clash at the Banbury Plant Hire Community Stadium, skipper Ricky Johnson soon cancelled it out but Brooks bagged the late winner.

Ford said: “We matched a team on the edge of the play-offs from the first minute to the last minute. I’ve got to try and make sure the players aren’t too disappointed, we can’t dwell on it. We’ve got to take it on the chin and move on, that’s part and parcel of football.

“We lost 2-1 to a couple of goals from corners, the difference between winning and losing that game was down to small margins. Both their goals came from set-pieces but ours was a well constructed goal.

“Biggleswade are a big, strong side and get the ball in the box very early with crosses and long thrown-ins, they made life very difficult for us. But it was bitterly disappointing to have lost it so late on.

“Our intention was to be very difficult to beat, even though we’d won a lot of home games, our away form had impacted on that.

“We felt at halftime that we got dragged down to their game and we needed to play more football in the second half. But we couldn’t play for long enough in the second half to give ourselves an advantage.

“In the closing stages we were the team looking to win the game but then they got the corner and we failed to deal with it again. We need to have a look at how we set up for defending corners.”