Daryl McMahon praised his young Ebbsfleet side for mixing it with Eastleigh's seasoned pros on Saturday.

Fleet were missing Andy Drury, Dave Winfield, Myles Weston and Kenny Clark - among others - on Saturday, leaving them without four of their most experience players.

McMahon was disappointed to see his side let a 2-1 lead slip in the second half but given the circumstances, he was happy enough with Ebbsfleet's latest National League showing.

McMahon said: "Eastleigh are a very good side. You go through their team and they've’ve got hundreds if not thousands of League games in their squad.

"We’ve got one player over 30 (Danny Kedwell) and we’ve got Bagasan Graham, first time at this level, Bushy’s been here before but he’s a young player, Yads was here before when he was at Ebbsfleet but minimal games, you’ve got Shields who wouldn’t have played at this level yet, Rancey’s the same when he comes on, Powelly the same, McQueen the same, so we’re a very young and inexperienced team but I don’t think it showed in the game.

"Our remit this year was to go into the division and be competitive and I think we’ve been more than competitive so far. We’ve been very unlucky a number of times in games not to take three points and sometimes down to our own bad play that we need to improve on."

One piece of bad play cost Fleet two points on Saturday. Graham had the chance to play the ball forward, with McQueen expecting a pass, but instead he turned inside and ended up losing the ball.

Eastleigh quickly moved forward and scored the equaliser when Reda Johnson's shot deflected in off Craig McAllister.

McMahon said: "It was a big bit of fortune (for them) but a bad bit of play from us before that to turn the ball over. I’m disappointed because we should have seen the game out at that point.

"It’s mental fatigue from Baggers. He’s had it a few times where the game gets on and he looks a bit tired but he’s got to find a way to get through it.

"I think he had an excellent game up to that point. He’s down now but he’ll get over it.

"You know you’ve made a mistake and it can affect you but I thought Bags was excellent today and he’ll get better. He’s a hungry player and he’s a hell of an athlete. I think he’ll improve."

Fleet have now drawn seven of their eight matches in the National League and have had to come from behind in six of those. They conceded first again on Saturday when James Constable converted a free-kick from the Eastleigh left.

McMahon said: "I didn’t think it was a foul from Marv but then we didn’t defend the second phase very well. It’s a good finish from Constable.

"Yeates has got quality from his delivery and I was happy when he went off to be fair because I thought he was having a good game. You go behind, react well, get in front and I expected us to see it through and we didn’t.

"But the important thing is we’re creating chances. We had a fair few chances in the second half that we could have scored from.

"Overall I’m pleased with the attacking stuff. We need to do a bit of work defensively, we’re conceding too many cheap goals at the moment but we’ll get that right."