Horsham FC boss Di Paola: Cray Wanderers draw sums up our season

That’s the view of Hornets manager Dominic Di Paola as missed chances and waved away penalty appeals proved costly.

Chris Dickson put the Wands ahead but headers from defenders Tom Day and Will Miles gave Horsham the lead at half-time.

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In the second half, a strong penalty appeal for handball was waved away, skipper Jack Brivio smacked a header against the bar and sub Rob O’Toole fluffed his lines when through on goal.

And Horsham’s lack of ruthlessness was punished when Cameron Brodie equalised on 65 minutes.

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Lucas Rodrigues was inches away from poking home Harvey Sparks’ cross and the hosts had another penalty appeal turned down. But the Hornets couldn’t find a late winner, seeing them remain 13th in the table.

Di Paola said: “We’ve got used to that this season. It just seems to be a common theme really.

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“There were some odd decisions, but what’s the point in talking about them? You can’t really get anywhere by talking about referees.

“But I think we had enough chances to win the game anyway. We just switched off in the second half from one of their rare attacks and we conceded.

“It’s pretty much been the story of our season really. Penalty decisions not given, us not taking chances, and us switching off and conceding a sloppy goal where we could, and should, have got three points.

“We’ll have to rectify that in the summer, but in general I thought we played pretty well again. Once we went behind I thought we were the better team throughout the rest of the game but we came away with just a point.

“Cray were fighting for their lives and you have to give them some credit but we were in control in the second half and we switched off and they scored. It’s frustrating because that has happened on numerous occasions this year.”

The Hornets have had the rare luxury of not playing a midweek fixture this week, but the rest of March is set to be incredibly busy.

Horsham will play eight fixtures - in the league, Sussex Sussex Cup and Velocity Trophy - before the end of the month.

Di Paola said the Hornets’ schedule had been ‘relentless’ and hasn’t left him much opportunity to work things through in training.

He said: “It’s been like this all season, especially with the FA Cup run, we’ve barely had a Tuesday where we haven’t had a game. It’s been quite hard to work on anything.

“It’s been quite relentless this year. We’ve had a few Saturdays called off so we’ll have to pick stuff up in the summer.

“I’m fairly certain about what we need to work on to improve those areas.”

Horsham travel to second-placed Bishop's Stortford this Saturday.

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