HELSTON Athletic manager Sid Taylor says his side will now be focused on chasing promotion in the South West Peninsula League West after Saturday’s Cornwall Senior Cup exit.

The Blues were knocked-out by Wendron United as the Jolly’s Combination League team won 2-0 in the third round of the competition at Underlane.

Athletic struggled throughout the match as they came up against a well-organised Dron side who made life difficult during the derby clash.

Reflecting on the loss, Taylor admitted he was disappointed before adding the defeat may act as some sort of blessing in disguise in their promotion hunt.

Taylor said: “It doesn’t feel good to be knocked-out and to be honest we just didn’t turn up or play well enough.

“You have to give credit to Wendron they battled well and took the chances they did create well and it looked like they wanted it a bit more than us.

“The condition of the pitch was a bit of a leveller, but we huffed and puffed but just couldn’t get anything.

“It won’t dent our confidence though and now we can concentrate on the league and what is important is that we bounce back when we play Millbrook on Saturday.”

Falmouth Packet:

Ben Stidwell heads the ball away from a Wendron corner during Saturday's Cornwall Senior Cup tie.

At half time, Taylor was spoken to by match referee Kevin Knowles about his discipline after the Blues boss expressed his unhappiness at some of the decisions.

This included Wendron skipper Justin Miles not being shown a red card for a two footed challenge on Andrew Westgarth.

Despite his qualms with the officiating, Taylor said overall he feels it did not affect the end result too much.

“I thought the tackle by Miles was bad,” he said.

“I know Hugh Howlett did shove in reaction to it, but for the referee to book the pair of them I couldn’t agree with because it was like saying both incidents were at the same level of offence.

“I also thought he was rather rude and I was disappointed with how he spoke to people on the pitch as it felt like he was belittling people and speaking to them like a school headmaster.

“Overall though, I don’t think we can say his decisions changed the result as we simply didn’t play well enough.”