Lee Morris said Brigg Town’s successful use of long ball tactics was his Worsbrough Bridge side’s downfall in the 3-0 defeat at Park Road.
A Reece Moody penalty after just 60 seconds put Worsbrough on the back-foot. The visitors slowed the game and then rode out a storm in the second half before a long ball enabled Ryan Thompson to score the decisive second goal.
“It is always to be hard to get any momentum in the game after you give a penalty away after just two or three minutes,” Morris told Non League Yorkshire.
“After they scored in the first few minutes, they were time-wasting and I’ve been in teams where we’ve done it and it is frustrating.
“We had them watched and we knew they would be very direct. We gave it a real good go in the second half. We tried to get more energy into midfield by moving Connor (Rollinson) in there and Scott (Batty) back to right-back.
“It worked and we passed the ball from side-to-side and constantly got forward. It looked like we’d get back into it and win it. But they sucker-punched us by hitting us with the long balls. Once it was 2-0, the game was done and dusted.
“The long balls were very effective and I think it is at this level. We have played against teams that do that and we have come unstuck. We have to address that because of our defending was poor today.
“We have to also get wise because we can’t start so sloppy. We’ve done it a few times recently and we managed to get away with it in the past few weeks.
“Brigg have come over and done a job on us. They’ve wasted time, but they have come away with three points. I take my hat off to them because they have come here and done a job on us.”
Morris, a top step 3 striker in his day, also made a surprise second half appearance to try and help his team salvage an unlikely point by adding an aerial presence.
Morris certainly made sure the Brigg defence know he had come on, but he was unable to make a real difference.
“The pitch cut up so we couldn’t really get it down and play the way we wanted to,” he said.
“It meant we had to go a bit more direct and that was only reason I came on.
“It was a cameo appearance and in a strange way I enjoyed it. But I only came on to give us a different option.”