WORCESTER City manager Carl Heeley pointed to a below-par second-half from his team as the chief reason for their defeat at North Ferriby.

Although they had an extra man for 47 minutes at Grange Lane, the visitors were unable to build on Daniel Nti's equaliser and conceded a second to Mark Gray.

Heeley said: "I was disappointed in us in the second-half but you have to give Ferriby credit. They are top of the league and will have had situations when they've been up against it and they bossed the game.

"We're obviously disappointed with our performance in the second-half but just because a team is down to 10 men, it doesn't give you a divine right to go and win the game.

"Credit to Ferriby, they dealt with balls into their box quite well and we had them hanging on a bit at the end.

"We had a couple of half chances and maybe on another day they'd go in but we can't always keep criticising ourselves, we've got to remember where we've come from since the turn of the year. We pushed them all the way."

Winger Martin Devaney, who made his first start for the club, added: "We didn't make the most of it in the second-half. We played against the wind in the first-half and we hoped it would be for us in the second-half so we could have a right go.

"When we came out at half-time the wind had settled down and we couldn't really get going. It was a bit frustrating and it was a bit of a scrappy goal from a set piece.

"In the first-half it was tough and very physical, we couldn't do anything about the penalty but Daniel took the free-kick really well so to go in at half-time 1-1 was promising.

"We were looking to take it that step further and get the three points but unfortunately in the second-half we didn't come out of the traps."