Poor defending - and poor everything else - condemns Rocks

The manager put the 4-0 reverse down to an all-round poor performance '“ and to some players failing to do what he and No2 Jamie Howell are telling them.

Killpartrick's men failed to recover from conceding two goals in the first ten minutes and although they played their share of the football and carved out some chances, they rarely looked like getting back into it.

Two more goals in the second half made it their worst defeat of the season to date.

Killpartrick said: "There was some bad defending but it wasn't just down to that. We were poor all-round.

"The only player to come out with credit was Tim Bond for his second-half performance.

"We huffed and puffed and created a couple of half-decent chances but it upsets me when we lose like that.

"We went out with the plan of trying to protect the full-backs but the wide players just didn't do that.

"One or two players are just not following instructions."

Get the Observer on Thursday for all the latest from the Lane, including news of which member of the squad is set to move on