DESPITE seeing his team’s recent good league form end emphatically at Darlington, Worcester City boss Carl Heeley was in pragmatic mood at full-time.

Worcester lost 5-1 with Ebby Nelson-Addy’s goal midway through the second half at Heritage Park coming when promotion-chasing Quakers were already five goals clear.

It was 3-0 at the break as Darlington’s set-pieces proved to be a potent weapon with two of their first-half goals coming from corners and the hosts added two more to their total early in the second half to effectively seal the points.

City’s manager was not too downbeat, however, pointing to Quakers’ quality as the key factor rather than any deficiencies in his own team.

“We’ve come up against a good side, we can’t do anything about that, so we move on to the next game,” said Heeley, whose team had lost only one of their previous seven league fixtures.

“It doesn’t matter whether we’re playing against a team at the top or the bottom, we try to win the game. The next opportunity will be next weekend, it won’t be easy. We’ll be against another side desperate for points.”

Heeley’s men have dropped two places to 14th in the table and are next in action at home on Saturday against Altrincham (3pm), a team at the opposite end of the table from Quakers.

“Darlington have got some big lads who are brave and go to head the ball,” added Heeley.

“The quality is decent from set-pieces but we gave away a number of cheap free-kicks and corners and ultimately they punished us.

“It’s going to be tough for every team who come here, they’re going to find it incredibly difficult.

“They’re a good side and I told their manager Martin Gray it will take a good side to finish above Darlington.”

Heeley withdrew veteran striker Lee Hughes on the hour, replacing him with midfielder Danny Jackman, and the manager explained: “When you’re 5-0 down with 30 minutes to go, you fear the worst and worry what could be. To our lads’ credit, they kept going.

“I took one of the forwards off as it was a case of damage limitation but we started to get more ball in the middle of the park and got ourselves a consolation goal. But we were well beaten, no complaints.

“We’ve lost a game of football, so now we move on to the next one and try to pick some points up then.”

Meanwhile, Heeley explained defender Tom Sharpe did not travel to the north-east, adding: “He’s not available. We hope to get him back shortly.”