52 pictures plus reaction as Eastbourne Borough slip up against Truro City

As in defeat to Bath City on the previous Saturday, the Sports dominated most of the game, but they failed to turn chances into goals, and fell to a 76th minute sucker punch in a Truro breakaway. See pictures from the loss by Lydia and Nick Redman on this page and those linked and see more from Andy Pelling in the slideshow in the video player above.

Post-match, Borough manager Mark Beard underlined his frustration when he spoke to the Eastbourne Herald - and he hinted that he may be in the market for an extra striker: “That’s three defeats on the bounce, and I can’t keep saying that it’s a learning curve. We keep creating chances, we keep out-possessing any team, but we’re not taking those chances. Will I have to go out and bring in a centre-forward? Quite probably yes. It’s the one thing that we are missing – that ruthlessness, that killer instinct.

“At the moment the forwards are doing too much outside the box – and when the balls go into the box, they’re not there. It’s a bit huff and puff at the moment, and it’s so frustrating. I don’t think there has been any opposing team so far, who have dominated us. It’s been a set-piece or a counter-attack – it’s goals that we’ve given to them. Nobody has battered us, and it’s been so frustrating because (in these defeats) we’ve always been in the game.”

Is the National South a league where bigger and more physical teams always come out on top? “Not necessarily. We got promoted with Dorking Wanderers, playing the same style of football – but what we had at Dorking were two strikers in Jason Prior and Alfie Rutherford who could score the goals.

“Here at Borough, we’re playing the same way, but the end product isn’t there. Up the top, we had three or four chances to win the Truro game, but the difference is we have to convert them! We go again at Chelmsford City. There are no easy games! The other aspect is that we’ll need to assess the injuries. We had our captain (Alex Finney) injured in the first minute and substituted, and then another injury in the 25th minute to Stefan Vukoje. So there’s been a bit of adversity, but those are not excuses. We’ll keep going and get it right!”