TONY Hackworth believed Pickering Town "got what they deserved" as they fell to a 2-1 defeat at 10-man Winterton Rangers on Saturday.

Having overcome high-flying Hallam in midweek, the Pikes boss was left seething as goals from James Dean-Atkinson and Harvey Graves condemned his side to a first loss of the NCEL Premier Division season.

Sam Calvert pulled a goal back for Pickering late on, but despite Luke Anderson’s second yellow card reducing the hosts to 10 men, they could not take advantage as the Lincolnshire side held on for just a second win of the campaign.

Hackworth told the club: “We’ve just had words with them in there, myself and Joe [Connor, coach], we were just nowhere near good enough.

“We got what we deserved out of the game, which was nothing.

“If we’re going to do anything this season in the league, we’ve got to come to places away from home and dig results out. They just wanted it more than us all over the park, which is the most disappointing thing.

“Whether our lads thought that they would just turn up and take three points I’m not too sure, but they’ve been told some massive home truths in there, and we need a massive reaction now against Parkgate on Tuesday night.”

Having fought back from a goal down to claim the spoils against Hallam, Pickering were soon brought back down to Earth at Winterton, with Dean-Atkinson opening the scoring with just two minutes on the clock.

A testing pitch and swirling wind made conditions less than ideal for either side, with the 200 supporters in attendance not treated to much of a spectacle.

That was until the 55th minute, when Graves doubled Winterton’s lead with a stunning curling strike past Alfie Burnett.

Calvert halved the deficit for Pickering with 15 minutes remaining before home striker Anderson was sent off, having received two yellow cards in quick succession.

But the Pikes could not capitalise on their man-advantage as they slumped to a 2-1 defeat.

Hackworth cited the hard pitch as one of the factors of the low-quality match, saying: “It’s a difficult pitch, not the greatest.

“It’s very dry and rock hard, but it’s the same for both teams. It’s as simple as that.

“There was no quality in the game, the ball was very much in the air and not the type of game we like to play – we like to get it down.

“But first and foremost we’ve got to win our individual battles, and we didn’t do that at all. They fought for it better than we did, and they deserved the three points.”

On going behind so early into proceedings, he admitted: “We didn’t come out of the blocks, and they’ve been told. 10 seconds before the goal, you could see what was going to happen.

“Blake [Drury] didn’t get tight enough to stop the cross, what happened at the back post I don’t know, and they score within 90 seconds of the football match.

“Everything we spoke about before the game about starting right and being on the front foot, just went out of the window straight away within two minutes.”

Pickering return to action at Parkgate this evening (7:45pm).