Harrogate Town boss Simon Weaver 'frustrated and annoyed' by goal conceded in Bristol Rovers defeat

The Sulphurites suffered their first home loss of the campaign, losing out 1-0 at Wetherby Road following another lacklustre second-half performance.

Town performed okay in the opening 45 without really ever getting out of second gear, but never turned up after the interval and were undone by Nick Anderton's scruffy 64th-minute finish.

Glenn Whelan's lofted diagonal from the right was met at the far post by Alfie Kilgour, who helped the ball back across goal for the ex-Carlisle United defender to turn in from close range.

“I’m frustrated and I’m annoyed with the goal we conceded because we had eight versus four in the box," Weaver said.

“We’ve got people retreating to the line and not going to the player, and as we always say, it’s not the space, it’s the man who scores.

“Between everyone in there, they’ve not seen the threat of the man in the six-yard-box. We practice it every week but this goal was down to individuals switching off

“The reactions are just slow at the minute at key moments and it has cost us the last couple of games when we have been right in those games.

“It’s important we keep that rearguard safe, but we haven’t been able to recently.”

Assessing his side's overall performance, Weaver admitted that Town didn't do enough after the break to give themselves a chance of winning the game.

But, he feels that his players should have had enough about them to hang in and ensure they came away with a point.

“First half, we were well in the game. Second half, we just didn’t get the tempo up, it’s self-inflicted really. We didn’t come out firing, we were a bit timid," he added.

“There’s no excuse because the lads, some of whom have been here for years, know how we want to carry out our game-plan in terms of tempo. That edge to our game was missing throughout the team today.

“When it’s not happening for us and we’re not fluent, we need to show an appreciation of that and snap and snarl and be first to the ball, stay in the game, make sure we don’t concede and value a point.

“But people started to get disappointed too quickly at 0-0, which they needn’t have done because we weren’t losing the game at that point.

“[At 1-0 down] we have got to bring energy, we have got to get up the pitch, we’ve got to have courage to get on the ball. I wouldn’t say Bristol Rovers did that much better than us, but they got a scruffy goal and it went their way today.”

Saturday's defeat, which is Harrogate's third in four matches but their first in 10 at home, sees them drop down to seventh in the League Two standings.