Presteigne St Andrews’ manager Barry Williams freely admitted to handing out the first major paint-stripping half-time talk of the season during the interval at Llandrindod Wells on Saturday.
He admitted his side had been well off the pace during the first 45 minutes and had demanded an improvement in the second half.
“To be quite frank the first 20 minutes were embarrassing as we were 3-0 down and didn’t look as though we had ever kicked a ball in our lives,” he said.
“We had five players drop out on Friday evening and Saturday but that was no excuse for the bad start.
“We were 4-0 down at half-time and there were a few choice words said and we said we would go out and win the second half and to be fair to the lads they were a lot better,” he added.
Barry felt the first goal was a bit of a fluke when a ball crossed from the left flank ended up dipping into far right corner of net giving the Presteigne keeper no chance.
It was 2-0 courtesy of a shot from the edge of area when the player wasn’t picked up and he fired low into bottom right corner.
Another looping cross rebounded of the cross bar and their player reacted quickest to tap in for 3-0.
Presteigne then raised their game and started to play better and had a few chances themselves with Spencer Napolitano putting the best one just wide.
But then right at end of the half they broke down the left and crossed for the ball to be scrambled into the net.
With Barry’s words of wisdom still ringing in their ears Presteigne did look a far better side after the break and they reduced arrears when Ryan Stokes hammered a free-kick from 20 yards out into the bottom right-hand corner.
Presteigne got it back to 4-2 courtesy of a well-worked move up the right with Jack Bowen crossing for Callum Matthews to head home.
Barry felt his side had a stonewall penalty turned down when a player hand-balled on the goal line but the referee was the only one in the ground not to see it.
Presteigne maintained their improvement finishing the game the stronger creating three more good chances but they failed to take advantage of them.
Barry said his side had definitely learned a very hard lesson in the first 45 minutes and said his side would need to be far quicker out of the blocks when they take on Ewyas Harold on Wednesday night at Llanandras Park.
“We ourselves down in the first 20 minutes and you can’t afford to let yourselves go three goals down and expect to get anything out of a game,” he said.
“Hopefully we will turn up a bit earlier on Wednesday night and we should have a few different faces to take a look at.”
The kick off at Llanandras Park on Wednesday 4 August will be at 7.30pm.