The post-match analysis of Saturday’s game threw up a lot of positives for the Cumbrians, with manager Paul Simpson shedding a particular focus on the first 45 minutes.
“I see the positives from the first half, without a doubt,” he agreed. “That’s what I said to the players, they’ve got to believe in themselves and be able to go and replicate that on a more consistent basis.
“In the first half there were a hell of a lot of good things, and we troubled them and caused them problems. We didn’t get to that level in the second half and unfortunately we came away with nothing. All we can do is dust ourselves down and get ready to go again.”
“We probably deserved to get a goal in the first half,” he added. “I thought we showed really good control.
“We had spells where we did that after the break, but we had occasions where we didn’t cross the ball into the box wen we got into the final third. We were turning it down and coming back out.
“We’ve got to try and stay positive, that’s the big thing we’ve got to do. The attendance shows we’re doing a lot of things right and we’ve just got to keep working and trying to produce more consistent performances which will bring better results.”
With the frustration there for the players at not having got their just rewards, we wondered if it was all part of the settling in process.
“It probably is but I don’t want the settling in process to go on much longer,” he told us. “We’ve got to adapt a lot quicker. We went into this game on the back of three decent performances, where we had a win and two draws.
“We wanted to carry it on but unfortunately we haven’t been able to do that. We always knew it was going to be a tough game, I just think we could have made it easier for ourselves if we’d maybe had a bit of luck in the first half and been a bit more clinical.
“We tried to help with that because they changed their shape to start the game, which allowed their left back to get out, he kept getting forward, so we decided to tweak it and get Mellish into midfield.
“I thought he caused a few problems and I thought Jordan Gibson was excellent, he played really well, he probably deserved a goal out of it or at least an assist.
“We’ve just got to keep trying to improve and working as hard as we can. There’s no way I can fault the effort the players have put in, they’ve put a real shift in, and that has to be the basics for us. Now we’ve got to get ready for the next one.”