Haverfordwest County captain Dylan Rees felt the Bluebirds’ slow start cost them dearly in the 5-1 defeat to The New Saints at Park Hall on Saturday afternoon.

The champions-elect raced into a three-goal lead inside the opening 30 minutes, and went on to add two further goals in the second half after Owain Jones had netted his sixth goal of the season shortly after the half hour mark.

This was the Town’s first defeat in nine matches, and their first-ever loss in the JD Cymru Premier Championship Conference, with Tony Pennock’s men looking to bounce back when we travel to Gwynedd to take on Bala Town on Saturday.

Here’s what the skipper had to say in full after the game:

On the game

I think we started slow and then when the first goal went in I think we didn’t really recover well after that and obviously the second went in and the third went in and it took us until then to start the game really, which is a shame.

We scored the goal and we had a bit of momentum after that, got back into the game a little bit, got into half time and then they came out second half and they obviously played really well today. It’s the best I’ve seen them for a long time, but I thought we could have got a bit closer to them around the park really.

So yes, a tough afternoon, but we’ve sort of got to dust ourselves down and go again next week against Bala and pick up where we left off before this game, really, yeah.

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On the performance

We have been [punished], like I said, they moved the ball really well today. They always play that way. Obviously they’ve got some great players on their side, but we like to back ourselves against anybody, but I think today, for whatever reason, it just wasn’t there, and we just have to go again next week.

On the next challenge

It’s going to be a completely different game there. Bala are a lot more physical, a lot more direct, so it’ll be a difficult game as it always is up there. But like I said, we’ve got to pick up from where we left off before this game. We’ll go there with every confidence that we can get a good result, which we have done early on in the season, so we’ll look forward to that.

We’ve got the players. We’ve had a chat in there now. We’ve got to put that to bed quickly, get to training now on Tuesday and sort out what we’re going to do for the Bala game. We’ll work hard as we always do and, like I said, bounce back and give it our best.

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