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Boss Ernie Batten felt his depleted Sheppey side deserved something out of their Isthmian South East match against Ashford on Saturday.
The promotion-chasing Ites, who were already without skipper Danny Leonard, lost one midfielder in the warm-up and another in the first 15 minutes before they fell behind after a controversial penalty was awarded.
Sheppey showed plenty of spirit and levelled through midfielder Eitel Goueth, only for a defensive mix-up to allow Ashford top scorer Gary Lockyer to strike in first-half injury time as it ended 2-1.
Batten’s troops, who gave first-team debuts to forward Zion McLeod and youth-team prospect David Johnson, even came close to a second equaliser after the restart, but the latter shot wide with an excellent late chance.
“I thought they did okay,” said Batten on the performances of McLeod and Johnson. “It’s a step up.
“Davey has come out of the under-23s and Zion has been playing for a Step 6 side (East Preston) - although he has been scoring a lot of goals for them.
“Perhaps there was a bit of realism there that, when you step up a couple of levels, it gets a lot harder. But they worked hard.
“Davey had a great chance right near the end, just prodding it past the far post, when I thought he was going to score. If we had got that equaliser, I think that would have been fair.
“We deserved to get something out of the game.”
Batten felt errors proved costly for his team, with referee Michael Scott ruling Gil Carvalho had fouled Ashford’s Dartford loanee winger Gabe Campbell in the penalty area. Keeper Aiden Prall saved James Dunne’s spot-kick but could not prevent him from converting the rebound at Holm Park on a cold afternoon.
The Nuts & Bolts’ second goal came after a mix-up between defenders Joe Tyrie and Lekan Majoyegbe, which presented Lockyer with just enough space to lob Prall.
Batten reflected: “We played okay, although we have played better.
“It was quite a big game in terms of Ashford being on the up and us being in the play-off positions at the start of play today. Basically, it came down to a couple of errors.
“We gave a penalty away - some may say it was very soft - and then we got ourselves back in the game and I felt we had a good period in the first half where we looked like we would get two or three goals.
“Then, one ball down the middle and one of our centre-halves has headed it against the other one and it’s rebounded off his head for Gary Lockyer to flick it over the keeper.
“That’s unfortunate but, with football being the way it is, you get punished. In the second half, I thought Ashford defended extremely well.
“They didn’t make any errors and that was probably the difference between the sides today. We have made a couple of errors, they didn’t.
“Maybe on another day, we’re likely to win that game but, sometimes, it is what it is.”
The last thing injury-hit Sheppey needed was more injuries. But they lost James Taylor in the warm-up and fellow midfielder Jordy Ndozid in just the 12th minute as their crisis worsened.
Batten said: “We had to make a change in the warm-up. We lost James Taylor, although he had trained on Thursday and was fine.
“So, that was one of our central midfield players and then Jordy, within five minutes, got an injury and had to come off. I had two of my three midfield players replaced within the first 15 minutes!
“We had to reshuffle around a little bit. But I think the lads did okay.
“It was a reasonably good performance today but, unfortunately, we didn’t get any points.”
Sixth-placed Sheppey, now outside the play-off positions on goal difference, will travel to Deal next weekend.
