Hastings United boss Chris Agutter's verdict on the Sussex Senior Cup final defeat to Horsham at the Amex Stadium
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00:00 Chris, commiserations on the result, not the result you wanted and probably not the performance you wanted.
00:06 How do you assess what you've seen tonight?
00:09 I've got to give Borsham a lot of credit I think. If I'm being honest, at times it was men against boys.
00:16 I think their experience and their quality showed.
00:21 We started the game well actually. The first 10-15 minutes we felt if we could get a foothold in the game
00:31 and certainly not give them the initiative like we have in the two previous games we've played,
00:35 we felt that would be a good platform to build from.
00:38 I thought as I said the last 10 minutes we were decent.
00:41 Had a majority of the ball, posed a couple of decent questions for them,
00:48 got in some really good attacking positions but they then had one chance to score.
00:55 I just think the difference in quality, our lack of quality in the final third versus their quality in the final third
01:04 was a big factor in the outcome of the game.
01:09 Again, I can't take too much away from Borsham. I thought they were well worth the win.
01:13 We've got not too much to complain about to be honest.
01:17 Is it something, although it's early days to say this, is it something you can learn from?
01:22 That's a very young team you had out there. Will they take a lot away from this when they think about it in the days and weeks to come?
01:29 They need to. The thing is, is Horsham set up in a similar way to what they did in the first game?
01:36 Off the back of that, we then do a lot of work on the training pitch.
01:41 When teams set up in a similar way, we were able to apply some of the learning from the original game against Horsham.
01:49 We've worked on it and applied it to similar games and we've had success against teams that do that.
01:55 But one of the things with a young group is often the only thing that's consistent is inconsistency.
02:01 What we saw tonight was similar issues that we had in the first game.
02:06 As I said, we've worked on it and thought we'd amend it.
02:11 Tonight they come back to haunt us a little bit.
02:14 Like I said, I think so much of football comes down to both boxes.
02:19 I thought in both boxes, they were miles better than us.
02:21 That's what I mean, like men against boys, you can see the experience and the difference in quality.
02:31 Do you think maybe why your players just couldn't score?
02:37 Obviously, you've got a young squad out there.
02:40 Maybe because the occasion got to them, like playing at the Premier League ground on a big pitch.
02:45 Do you think maybe that's why you couldn't score?
02:47 No, I don't think it was that.
02:52 I think any sort of statements of saying that our guys and a lack of experience has meant that we're over-ruled by the occasion,
03:01 I think that takes away from Horsham.
03:03 I think ultimately Horsham were just better than us.
03:05 When Horsham had chances, they took them.
03:08 The key moments in the game, as I said, we had one in the first ten minutes or so where the ball's come across
03:13 and our right winger, rather than take his touch inside the pitch, takes it to goal.
03:18 Then we potentially go one-nil up.
03:22 He takes a touch wide and ends up near the corner flag, whereas for their second goal, very similar situation.
03:28 Their lad takes a touch towards goal, then the ball goes over the full-back.
03:33 Just a little bit of difference in quality, to be honest.
03:36 I wouldn't want to say it was anything to do with the occasion.
03:40 I think just credit to Horsham.
03:41 Is that what you said to the boys in the dressing room then?
03:44 No, we just praised them really because ultimately it would be easy to sit there and start having a bit of a pop and grilling people.
03:52 But now's not the time or the place.
03:54 When we took over in the end of October, we were near the bottom of the league.
04:00 We had 12 senior players and the brief was to keep us up.
04:05 Then over the past six months, we've managed to get within touching distance of the play-offs and the Cup Final.
04:14 The first Cup Final the club's been at for the last 20-plus years.
04:19 For me, I'm just really proud of the players.
04:22 Ultimately, they need to take this experience and use it as fuel to new forms.
04:26 We've got to make sure that it's not another 20 years before the club's at a Cup Final again.
04:31 Thank you.
04:33 Is it?
04:34 David Lloris broke the club's scoring record this season.
04:39 Why do you think he struggled to see it in the football?
04:42 Service probably wasn't the best.
04:45 When teams bank up like that, it's a bit of a mid-to-low block.
04:50 You need to do a lot of work leading up to that to create enough space and get into positions to give Dad the service.
04:57 Dad was probably a victim of their forward line and their front two.
05:02 We didn't do enough to disrupt that.
05:04 We played forwards too fast, too early and ended up playing into traps rather than doing more to disrupt their first line,
05:15 which then opens up space in between for us to play through.
05:17 Then we can get the ball into Dad from there.
05:20 I don't think, to be honest, it was anything that Dav did or didn't do.
05:25 I think it was more a lack of service and no major complaints as far as Dav's concerned, to be honest.
05:33 What are your targets for next season?
05:35 How can you use this result to provide extra motivation next season to push forwards on?
05:40 Like I said, the emotion and the disappointment from this evening, the same as myself as a manager.
05:48 Seeing Dom picking up the winner's medal, that makes me feel incredibly uncomfortable.
05:55 Same as the players, really.
05:57 We've all got to use it as fuel to move forwards and make sure it doesn't happen again.
06:02 In terms of building on it, as I said, with a young group, they'll be better for the experience.
06:09 They will be better.
06:12 It's just a case of trying to learn from it and move forwards, as basic as that sounds.
06:16 It's also really important that you highlight all the positive stuff.
06:20 We've got to keep doing that and we've got to build on that.
06:24 A lot of the negatives that we saw tonight, we've got to try and find a way to fill those gaps and move forwards.
06:33 My big message is we've done an awful lot well this year.
06:37 We're very close to being a side that can compete at the top end of Step 3.
06:45 We're not a million miles away, so it's just a case of building on the positives.
06:49 Obviously, the early goal must have been quite challenging to recover from.
06:53 Was there any tactical changes that you felt needed to be made as early as that was?
06:57 Yes, so we changed the position of our wingers.
07:05 Rather than our wingers staying high and pinning their full backs,
07:14 which then potentially gives us space to play around and in front,
07:17 we just felt that where they'd just made a bit of a block,
07:22 and where their two sides of their midfield four were man-marking,
07:26 because we have three 10s, so where they were narrowed off man-marking,
07:29 it actually gave us space to play around.
07:31 So what we tried to do at half-time was play our wide players a little bit deeper
07:35 to try and pull the full back out to then get one of the three 10s spinning in behind.
07:40 So that was a big thing, really.
07:43 But again, I'm conscious of not taking too much away from Horsham,
07:48 but I do feel like in terms of them stopping us from having success,
07:58 I think it's more about us doing plan A better.
08:03 So I think really basically the amount of loose passes,
08:06 the amount of times that we could have moved it off one and two,
08:08 touched it and took three or four, so you allow them to get into position and bank up.
08:12 I think if we were better in our execution of plan A,
08:17 Horsham wouldn't have had as much success.
08:21 But then, as I said, to be honest, I think we could have probably been there all night
08:25 and we would have scored because it just sent that feeling.
08:27 Again, going back to what I first said, that's credit to Horsham in terms of their personnel.
08:32 It just felt a little bit like men against boys.
08:34 But again, that's something that we need to take, learn from the disappointment,
08:41 and use it as fuel to move forwards.