St Ives Town boss Ricky Marheineke admitted his team were on the receiving end of ‘complete domination’ when crashing to defeat yesterday.

The Saints were beaten 3-0 at Slough in the Southern League Premier Division to come back down to earth with a thud after collecting back-to-back victories in recent days.

And Marheineke admitted his out-of-sorts players could count themselves lucky the scoreline was not even heavier as they failed to put in the hard work expected of them.

He said: “I have to admit the final scoreline was a fair reflection of the game. If anything it could have been even more emphatic.

“It is a long time since I have been involved in such a one-sided game of football.

Even if a team is outclassed, they normally have the odd spell of pressure, but that didn’t happen for us.

“It was complete domination from Slough for 90 minutes and I’m very angry with the way some of our lads didn’t put in the defensive shift we expect of them.

“Certain people went hiding and that is not acceptable. They let themselves and each other down.”

The only surprise was it took Slough until 10 minutes before the break to hit the front when and Saints’ best chances arrived moments later as a Harry O’Malley header was saved before Lee Chaffey steered a headed effort of his own onto the top of the crossbar.

But the hosts struck again in the opening minute of the second half before Saints’ fate was sealed by a third Slough goal midway through the second period.

Only some smart saves from goalkeeper Ollie Sutton prevented further damage.

* St Ives face a trip to Hereford to take on Westfields in the first qualifying round of the FA Cup on September 3. Westfields beat Tividale in the preliminary round yesterday.