Mansell rues poor first half as St Albans City halt Hillians’ charge
Burgess Hill manager Gary Mansell rued a poor first half that he felt cost his side in their 1-0 defeat to St Albans City.
The loss halted – hopefully only temporarily – the momentum the Hillians were building after a draw with leaders Folkestone and wins over Dartford and Hashtag.
And it came on a day they played the final hour with striker Ben Pope in goal after an injury that forced off Roco Rees.
The defeat left Mansell and Jay Lovett’s side three places and five points off the play-off places.
The visitors took the lead through Kieran Petrie 20 minutes in as another huge Leylands Park crowd – 957 – watched. Rees was forced off shortly afterwards.
Joint boss Mansell said: “First half we didn’t do enough and we didn’t get going. We were too slow and everything was a bit too passive.
“They dominated the ball first half. We didn’t have enough of the ball and when we did, we weren’t good enough with it.
“Second half I was pleased as there was more energy and more tempo and I thought we were a bit better.
“We edged the second half but I suppose it comes down to fine margins in this league.
“St Albans are a good side. They gave us a tough game up at their place (where Hill won 4-3) and a tough game down here. They’ll win some and they’ll lose some but they’re a good side.”
When Rees had to go off, with no back-up keeper on the bench, striker Pope had to go between the posts – and he promptly delivered a man-of-the-match performance.
Mansell added: “Ben Pope was superb. It’s never ideal losing your goalkeeper and it’s one of those, you never really consider what’s the back-up.
“He’s volunteered to go in and the first two crosses he came and dealt with and he made two great saves in the second half. We don’t know about Rees’ injury yet – it’s a quad strain and we’ll need to assess him and see how severe that is and we’ll only decide what to do when we know.”
The Hillians were denied the chance to bounce back on Tuesday night when their game at Wingate & Finchley was rained off.
On Saturday they cross Sussex to visit Whitehawk.