'Naive' Gosport Borough must do 'better' defensively after Taunton Town defeat

Striker Matt Paterson had headed Boro level in Somerset seven minutes from time, cancelling out Jack Veale's deflecting second-half opener, only for Jared Lewington to fire home to wrap up a 2-1 win for Taunton.

Gale's frustrations were then compounded when midfielder Bedsente Gomis was dismissed five minutes from the end after picking up a second yellow card in just his third appearance for the club.

The Boro boss had called for a reaction from his players following their home draw with lowly Kings Langley last time out.

And, for periods, Gale felt he got that from his side - but he stressed they cannot continue to make the costly errors they have been at the back.

‘We played alright in spells of the game, to be fair, but we were naive and we gave away two poor goals. You can’t give teams goals,’ conceded Gale.

‘The defending for the first goal has got to be better. We’ve not really defended it well and it ends up a deflection off of Briggsy (Matt Briggs).

‘The lead up to it, we should have defended a lot better. We then have a spell, we get ourselves back into the game, we score a really good goal with Matt Paterson.

‘It’s frustrating because the goal (second goal) is a poor goal. We don’t seem to concede and we’ve been really worked. We should have just cleared the ball.

‘We’ve allowed the lad to muscle us out of it, get down the side, square it back and from there the lad smashes it in.’

All three goals came in a 33-minute second half period. Veale's strike found the net via a deflection of Matt Briggs as Taunton took the lead five minutes after the restart.

Paterson headed home his first league goal of the season after a real struggle with injuries as Boro looked on course to at least come away with a point with eight minutes left to play.

But defensive frailty resurfaced just a minute later and Lewington won it for the home side.

Former Hawks midfielder Gomis then picked up a 'stupid' second yellow card five minutes from time as Boro ended with 10-men.

Gale added: ‘It’s frustrating, if I’m honest, but it’s where we are. You know what, I keep saying it and it’s a broken record, we’ve had a decent start.

‘It’s one of those games. It’s fine lines in football and yesterday we didn’t perform for the whole game, we’ve got to perform for the 90 minutes, that’s what we’re looking to do and not in spells of the game.’