BASINGSTOKE Town manager Frank Gray was left to rue a lapse of discipline as his side conceded a late goal to lose away at Farnborough.

With the visitors looking to break having successfully defended a corner in the final minute of injury-time at the end of the game, midfielder Shaun McAuley inexplicably pulled a Farnborough player back off the ball.

The referee awarded the hosts a free-kick on the edge of the area and while Phillip Page’s initial effort smashed into the Town wall, the rebound fell kindly for the striker to volley home the only goal of the game.

Gray said: “The game had draw written all over it. We just had to see it out and take a point, which we would not have been too disappointed with in the circumstances.

“It was so disappointing and unprofessional to give a free-kick away at that stage when we had a chance to go on a break. To do that and put us under pressure was terrible.”

With Wes Daly and David Pratt suspended and Tim Sills out with a knee injury, Gray was forced to make three changes to the side that had beaten Eastleigh a week earlier, something he felt cost his team dear.

“It’s difficult when you have a good win and then you have to make three changes,” Gray added. “Rob Gradwell worked his socks off but Tim Sills gives us something different and we missed Wes Daly’s passing ability at times.”

The one piece of good news was that none of the seven sides immediately above Town in the Blue Square Bet South table won either.

“The good thing is that we have not lost a lot of ground on the teams we are trying to catch,” Gray said. “We could have been closer if we had won but we have got to take the positive, which is that we are not any further back. If we can pick up three points next week we will be right in there.”

See The Monday Gazette for a full report.