Falmouth Town boss Andrew Westgarth was upbeat despite his side being dumped out of the FA Vase in extra-time by Hamworthy United on Saturday.

Town led 1-0 through striker Jordan Annear before the Wessex League side, ranked one division higher than Town, levelled with three minutes of normal time remaining.

The Dorset-based side then went on to score twice more in extra-time to advance to the third round of the national competition.

Westgarth said: “Well obviously I’m bitterly disappointed with the result but immensely proud of the performance really. I think we were three minutes away from the near-on perfect result but we were just unfortunate to concede late on and I felt like we just ran out of steam in extra-time.

“They were everything that we expected, very physical, very direct, but I felt we dealt with them and they only had a couple of chances.

“Overall I think we had the better chances on goal and on another day probably the chances cost us in the end because we had enough to put them to bed and see the game out.”

Town had a break from the familiarity of playing on grass with the match being played on Hamworthy’s artificial ‘3G’ pitch, and while Westgarth steered clear of blaming the loss on the pitch, he admitted that his side’s lack of experience on the surface made life difficult for his team.

“It’s hard to say really," he said. "If we had won then I suppose we wouldn’t say anything about it really but you lose and the questions get asked, but regardless of the result it’s not my ideal surface.

“There’s just too many factors that come into play: five-a-side goals all around the side of it, not a true bounce, it’s very slow, there’s so much rubber crumb, there’s no tackles, it doesn’t feel like there’s an atmosphere there.

“It’s hard to say if it affected the result but for our first attempt on it and for 87 minutes we were excellent.”

Despite the disappointing nature of his side’s cup exit, Westgarth is happy with the experience that his team has gained from their Vase run.

“Fantastic, it’s definitely given the boys a taster for more considering that for most of the side it was their first experience of the FA Vase and I’m sure they’ll take away a lot of memories from it."

  • Town return to cup action on Saturday when they welcome SWPL Division 1 West club St Dennis to Bickland Park (kick-off 2pm).