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Dover manger Andy Hessenthaler admits his side's poor decision-making in the final third was costly during Tuesday night's 2-1 loss to Dagenham & Redbridge.
Whites dominated possession throughout their first National League appearance of the season at Crabble as the visitors adopted a clear counter-attacking approach.
Despite seeing plenty of joy on the flanks with full-backs Josh Passley and Bobby-Joe Taylor, Dover couldn't quite produce the precise final ball required again a stern defensive set-up.
Scroll down to hear Andy Hessenthaler's reaction to the match.
Hessenthaler said: "It was frustrating, you've got give Dagenham some credit.
"They've come and set up for counter-attacking football and we got sucker-punched from it to be fair.
"The disappointing thing for me is that we told the players that, because I know Pete (Dagenham boss Peter Taylor), he's shrewd, he knows what he's doing.
"They lost on Saturday (2-0 to Woking), we knew they would come and make it difficult and keep it tight."
Dagenham's first goal came courtesy of a swift break as Joan Luque surged down the left-hand side and picked out Angelo Balanta with his pull-back for a simple finish.
Their second, and what would prove the winner, stemmed from a mis-read from Dover centre-back Scott Doe as he was beaten for pace over the top by Balanta before bringing his man down in the box.
Former Dover skipper Mitch Brundle stepped up to make no mistake from the penalty spot.
Hessenthaler added: "The first goal was on the counter-attack where it wasn't a good decision in terms of us putting the ball back in the box and we lost it, they countered and then scored.
"The penalty is just a mix up with Doey (Scott Doe) and Kev (Kevin Lokko), Doey has held his hands up to be fair, he didn't read the touch off Kev's foot and the lad has got in.
"That was after us getting back in the game with the goal from Alfie.
"Disappointing night but we pretty much dominated the ball second half, we lacked that real quality at the end.
"There were balls going into the box and they got it before us which was a bit disappointing especially with us being at home. It wasn't for a lack of effort, it's just the lack of quality perhaps tonight.
"We said that, our quality wasn't very good tonight. I don't know how many corners and free-kicks we had from wide and central areas, it's stuff that we work on and the quality wasn't right tonight.
"There's going to be games like that, I can't be too critical of the boys. We've been on a decent run carrying over from last season, we've got to bounce back now on Saturday against Wrexham."
A key frustration for Dover was their failure to take advantage of openings out-wide having seen the value of their crossing expertise underlined through Alfie Pavey's two headed goals in Saturday's 2-1 win at Chesterfield.
"They sat in and we just didn't have enough guile or decision-making," admitted Hessenthaler.
"We said at half-time we had to work the ball wide, which we did at times but we didn't create enough going wide.
"Then when we did get balls into the box the quality wasn't great or we didn't get enough people on the end of it and have that real belief that we were going to get that equaliser.
"If we get that equaliser you never know, we could have gone on and won the game.
"We can't be chasing the game at home giving away two silly goals like we did, but it happens. We've got to learn from it and we go again."
Dover are set to host promotion-chasing Wrexham at Crabble on Saturday before travelling to Barnet on Tuesday night.
