HIGHWORTH Town manager Jeff Roberts felt old habits cost his team on Saturday as two goals in quick succession led to a 2-1 defeat away at Southern League Division One South high-flyers Moneyfields.

Town made a decent start at the home of the team in third in the table, with Swindon Town loanee Jordan Young having the best of the chances to put Roberts’ men ahead.

Young was not to be denied for long as he smashed home to put Highworth ahead.

However, before 50 minutes had ticked onto the game clock, Moneyfields had scored twice to turn the game on its head, while Town’s Darren Jeffries was sent off late on to compound the misery for Roberts.

The Town chief criticised his team’s concentration levels once again as, not for the first time this season, they conceded soon after scoring to drop valuable points.

Roberts said: “I thought we deserved a point, for sure. We had some good spells, but it was quite a tight game in the first half and then we scored just after half-time.

“Unfortunately, we conceded twice in quick succession, which is something we’ve done quite frequently all season.

“I’m a bit disappointed that we could have had a penalty for handball near the end, but it wasn’t given.

“Overall, we’ve controlled fairly long periods of the game, but when we switch off – and we’ve done that a lot this season – we do get punished.

“I thought we pressed Moneyfields quite well in the second half and had a few good opportunities ourselves – we had one cleared off the line and Jordan Young snatched at one, but we’ve got to start learning how to control games when we do go a goal up.”