MANAGER Carl Heeley compared Worcester City’s defending to “schoolboy football” after suffering a “calamitous” 3-2 defeat to Gloucester City.

Heeley slammed his side’s performance at the back as Luke Hopper took advantage of mistakes by debutant centre-back Sam Oji before completing his hat-trick late on.

Lee Hughes and Colby Bishop scored in the final 10 minutes to set up a tense finale at the Victoria Ground.

But Heeley insisted their fightback was “meaningless” after what he branded as an “unacceptable” defensive display.

“When you have got two central defenders defending like that, it is as bad as I have seen,” he said.

“It was schoolboy football.

“We were under no pressure (for the first goal). You needed to either clear the ball or roll it back to the keeper, but instead it was a case of ‘There you are, put it in the back of the net’.

“For the second, you just needed to go and head the ball as that’s what you are paid to, but then it was 2-0.

“We clawed ourselves back into it, but for the third goal the kid falls over, gets back up and still rolls it to the one player marked by four defenders which is calamitous.

“That was not good enough, not acceptable. I have got no defence for that.”

Former Doncaster Rovers defender Oji was making his first league appearance for the club after getting his international clearance through.

But after gifting Hopper the opener with a misplaced back pass, a breakdown in communication between Oji and Tom Sharpe allowed the striker to nip in and slot home his second.

“I was watching under 10s football from experienced players with 250 or 300 games,” continued Heeley.

“That’s unacceptable.

“I wish I could go out there and head it myself, but I can’t.”

Hughes came off the bench to score his third goal of the season before Bishop bagged his first for the club.

But Heeley added: “We scored two goals, but we are clawing ourselves back after our own stupid mistakes.

“You can talk about formations and about individuals, but you can’t legislate for individual basic errors like that.”

However, City’s boss was critical of the referee after he ignored a penalty appeal.

“I am also not happy with the referee,” he said.

“I have seen my player go through on goal and I see him get scythed down.

“He said it was a coming together, but it was a foul and it was a stonewall penalty.

“But all we are doing is papering over cracks because that (performance) was not good enough.”