PETERSFIELD Town manager Mark Summerhill was frustrated with his side’s slow start after they slipped to a 1-0 defeat at Andover Town on Saturday in Division One of the Sydenhams Wessex League.

Owen Trapnell scored the only goal of the game in the first minute to give the home side the three points.

And Summerhill was annoyed with his side’s start.

“I predicted it,” said the Petersfield manager. “It felt like our guys thought they just had to turn up to win. I called them out on it and explained it wouldn’t be an easy task.

“We kicked-off and the ball went back to Harry Tremlett, who chipped a half-hearted ball to their midfielder.

“We fumbled the ball out for a corner, but we left two players unmarked from the corner and they scored. We gifted them their goal and showed naivety. We need to learn from it. It was really disappointing.

“In the first 20 minutes we could have been 4-0 down. We couldn’t get into the game.

“I don’t know if it was overconfidence or complacency.

“There is a very fine line between being confident and being complacent.

“I think one or two of our players forgot how high our levels were in our good run.

“We’ve got to be at the top of our game to get results.”

Summerhill was pleased with his side’s improved performance in the second half at Andover, but he felt the damage had already been done.

“We were dominant in the second half but they had a goal lead to cling on to,” said the Rams boss. “They made a number of last-ditch tackles.

“A draw maybe would have been a fair result.”

Despite the defeat, Summerhill was able to pick out some positives for his side.

“Will Essai got another 40 minutes off the bench, which was good, so there are positives to take from it,” he said.

“We’ve got good players but we weren’t at it, and we paid the price. Half time couldn’t come quickly enough for us.

“When we were on our good run we were throwing our bodies in the way of things.

“Andover stopped us playing balls in behind. Joe Roberts did well on his debut, though, which was a positive for us.”

Summerhill also felt his side didn’t have the rub of the green against Andover.

“Things conspired against us a bit with Matt Low coming off and Lewis Tosdevine breaking down in the warm up.

“We also should have had a penalty when Marvin Orepo was fouled in the box.”