Gloucester City manager Mike Cook feels Walton & Hersham ‘had the better chances’ after his Tigers slumped to a 2-1 defeat at home to their playoff rivals in the Southern Premier Division South.
Ed Williams gave the hosts the lead 10 minutes after the interval after a Jake Evans free kick deflected off the Swans wall and Joe Hanks before falling to the feet of Williams who could not miss.
10 minutes later, the hosts were pegged back after on-loan Coventry City goalkeeper Luke Bell made three stunning saves before the away side’s top scorer Dawid Rogalski bundled the ball in from close range.
As the match reached the closing stages it was the Surrey based side who were pushing for the winner with Bell making an incredible instinctive save to deny in-form Johl Powell from close range.
In the dying embers the away sides pressure told as Rogalski netted his second after firing a powerful instictive strike above the 21-year-old after another melee in the City area.
The Tigers huffed and puffed but were unable to pull level to leave their opponents just three points behind City with a game in hand in addition to losing even more ground in the title race after the top two AFC Totton and Merthyr Town drew at the Snows Stadium.
City manager Cook could not hide his disappointment as he admitted the Swans deserved all three points.
“I think they had the better chances so that’s a little disappointing.
“We talked about a couple of things we wanted to do on Thursday. I thought it half worked so that for me again is disappointing but overall they’ve probably done enough to win it I think.”
Despite the defeat the 56-year-old admitted he could take some solace from Bell’s stunning performance who’s one month loan at the club is expiring.
“He’s done really well, we are really pleased with him and I think Jared (Jared Thompson) is going to be out for a couple more weeks so we need to get that loan sorted, we’ve already asked Coventry if we can extend the loan but he’s done really well, his kicking has been great, his handling, he has come up with two or three really good saves.
“He hasn’t had a lot to do over the past four or five games but what he has done is do the basics really well and he looks like a really good prospect for having a Football League career doesn’t he.”
It’s another big game for third placed City who travel to Berkshire on Saturday when they take on Hungerford Town who before losing to Sholing Town on the weekend were unbeaten in 11 games in the league.
“I watched them (Hungerford) on Tuesday night against Poole and they did quite well, they drew the game that day, the pitch is not great.
“We are going to have to get the ball down as much as we possibly can but be within reason, getting it a bit forward quicker as well.
“We’ve got a lot of video evidence on them, they’ve been on a bit of a run the same as us so I still think they will be fairly confident even with a loss today and the draw Tuesday.”
