DARREN Perrin’s Melksham Town were brought back to earth with a bump as they were knocked out of the Les Phillips Cup at Toolstation League First Division Wellington last weekend.

Melksham led twice through Shaun Benison’s early goal and a Dan Kovacs strike but the home side secured their progress to the next round, scoring twice in a matter of minutes midway through the second period to inflict a 3-2 defeat on Perrin’s men.

And the Conigre chief was damning in his assessment of his Premier Division table-toppers’ performance.

“Pathetic, abysmal, poor, embarrassing – you could use whatever word you wanted to describe what happened on Saturday,” said Perrin.

“It was the first time in the 14 months I’ve been the manager that I could say my players turned up thinking that it was going to be easy.

“I think a few of them had got carried away with us being top of the league and it was a bit of a rude awakening.

“If you score two goals away to a team from the league below, that should be enough to win the game.

“Shaun Benison scored on his return (from injury). Luke Smith and Dave Thompson also played 90 minutes and they were two of the four players that you would say came out with any credit.

“It’s going to make my selection for the next game very interesting. Bearing in mind there’s Leigh Rogers, (Gary) Higdon, (Mike) Perrott, (Dean) Flockton, Ian Jeffrey and Rob Brown back available, I could easily start all six of them.”

Melksham host league rivals Slimbridge in the second round of the FA Vase this Saturday, with forward Dan King cup-tied.

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