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Ashford boss Tommy Warrilow felt his side were undone by fine margins in their Isthmian South East play-off final defeat to Kent rivals Herne Bay on Saturday.
For the Nuts & Bolts, who lost at the same stage three years ago to Horsham, it was a bitter pill to swallow.
An even tie at Homelands swung Bay’s way when United had a penalty appeal controversially turned down before winger Kieron Campbell struck soon after in the second half, with substitute Aaron Millbank then scoring a spot-kick six minutes from time to seal their 2-0 success.
“It’s just hard,” he conceded.
“Listen, the last thing they (his players) want to do is hear us shouting on at them. They’re devastated in there.
“It was fine margins. I don’t think there was a lot in it today.
“I don’t mind about all this possession stuff - it’s about how teams hurt you.
“Today, we’ve not scored and, if you don’t score, obviously, then you don’t get the result.”
On the goals his side conceded, he added: “It’s more disappointing the fact that I thought for both goals - I don’t want to sound disrespectful - but they weren’t well worked by them.
“They came from us (Ashford mistakes). It was a tight game.
“We did cancel each other out and you’re going to in games like this. We’re both entertaining (sides) and my teams are always thinking attack, attack, attack, but we wanted to make sure today we also didn’t get caught on the counter-attack, although we did on a few occasions without the end product.
“But it’s a one-off game, there’s a lot riding on it, so you do change your tactics a little bit.”
Warrilow accepts conceding first changed the complexion of the game.
He said: “It does because you’ve got to look to get back in the game, and we got caught for the penalty. I thought we had some good opportunities in the first half.
“Gal (Gary Lockyer) has had a couple and Tash-Jay Kwayie’s header - I think they’re good chances, not half-chances. But it is what it is. We’ve just got to suck it up.
“It’s horrible. It’s the second time we’ve got to the final and the second time we’ve lost it.
“We’ve just got to dust ourselves down and move on to next season.”
Both sides had seen earlier penalty claims waved away before Millbank was adjudged to have been fouled by Ashford full-back Bradley Simms by referee Abigail Byrne.
Asked for his view on the penalty incident, Warrilow replied: “I don’t know.
“Bradley is through with him. If it’s a penalty, she should’ve sent him off. I’ve seen them given, I’ve seen them not given. I thought we had a few penalty shouts today to be honest as well.
“But that’s not the reason why we lost.”
Warrilow is unsure when discussions will start for Ashford’s 2022/23 Isthmian South East campaign but he says he will be organising a friendly fundraiser for injured midfielder Rhyle Ovenden in the summer when he expects initial talks will take place.
