THE IRONY wasn’t lost on Chippenham Town manager Mark Collier as his side were booted out of the FA Cup by Hemel Hempstead Town.

The Bluebirds were on the end of a 5-0 thrashing at the hands of the Conference South Tudors, who won the Evo-Stik League Southern Premier Division title last term, but Collier was nonetheless pleased with the way his team performed at Hardenhuish Park.

Chippenham were unable to convert their chances as they exited the famous cup whilst Hemel were clinical in front of goal, with Lewis Toomey scoring twice whilst James Potton, Leon Lobjoit and Jordan Parkes were all on target.

“I know that a lot of people will look in the paper and see 5-0 but it certainly wasn’t that. I know it sounds a bit warped but we’re quite pleased with the way we played,” said the Bluebirds boss.

“It was difficult to go in with the players because I don’t really think they deserved that to be perfectly honest.

“But that’s football - you don’t always get what you deserve.

“We’ve got a dressing room that’s down in the dumps and feeling sorry for themselves but I’ve told them to be disappointed but not down because if we perform like that in our division, then we’re going to win quite a lot of games.

“The massive difference was, in the penalty box. They’ve had seven chances and scored five and we’ve had seven chances and not scored any.

“So we know that’s where our problems lie. We’ve created good chances wherein the past couple of weeks, maybe we haven’t done.

“We’ve created four or five very, very good chances and not done enough – not worked the keeper, not made the keeper save.

“We have to learn that when we get into good positions, we have to be clinical and single-minded and score goals like they have (on Saturday).

Collier added: “We set up well and created enough chances to win the game of football but we haven’t scored one and you have to hold your hands up and say we haven’t done enough to win the game.

“Generally, I’m very pleased with the way we played but very, very disappointed with the result.”

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