WASTEFUL finishing cost St Ives Town dearly on Saturday as they fell to their third home defeat in a row on Saturday against Long Buckby.

WASTEFUL finishing cost St Ives Town dearly on Saturday as they fell to their third home defeat in a row on Saturday against Long Buckby.

The loss, coming on the back of a 1-0 reverse at Northampton Spencer the previous Tuesday, was also Saints’ third defeat in four UCL games, though the scoreline did not reflect the opportunities they had throughout the game.

The teams went in goalless at the break after an even first half, and Ives even had the better of the opening exchanges of the second half. The Saints hit the woodwork twice, and were kept out on several other occasions by fine saves.

However, Buckby struck first through Brad Harris on 65 minutes and then made the game safe on 82 when Greg Ling added a second.

Co-manager Warren Everdell said the result could have been different had Saints taken the chances presented to them.

He said: “It was a goalkeeping error that led to their goal and, once that went in, the lads’ heads seem to go down. We were rushing our play and we played differently.

“Buckby’s front two were good but I felt that they lacked pace at the back and we didn’t exploit this one bit.”

Co-manager Jez Hall said the performance against Long Buckby had been an improvement on the midweek showing against Northampton Spencer.

“In a game of football there are two important things – scoring goals, and not making mistakes.

“We played 10 times better on Saturday than on Tuesday, so there are some positives to come from that, but we had the chances to score, and we shouldn’t have made the mistakes we made.”

“We hit the bar twice and the keeper made a couple of good saves to deny us. It is frustrating, and it would have been great to get the win we needed.”