ROY O’Brien was left to rue poor decision-making from his players in last night’s 3-0 loss at Staines Town.

The match was goalless at half-time but a strike from Howard Newton just five minutes into the restart put the Blue Square South new boys in front before Leroy Griffiths and Chris Bourne both netted in the latter stages to add gloss to the victory.

Dorchester boss O’Brien, whose side have now dropped from top of the table to 10th, was pleased with the work-rate of his charges but lamented individual errors.

He said: “We played very well in the first half but in the second half Staines got themselves into the game more and more. I thought the scoreline flattered them somewhat, however, no matter how you dress it up we have still been beaten 3-0.

“There were a few decisions made by our players that were not the right ones and those mistakes cost us.

“We also had some good chances in the first half, and a few later on in the second, so we need to be more clinical in front of goal.

“We didn’t take our chances whereas they took theirs.

“We’ll stay upbeat though because the lads didn’t stop working, and hopefully the fans who made the trip will have seen that and been happy with that aspect as well. Plus, it was only a few days ago that the lads played really well against St Albans.

“There’s no point getting down about the defeat, we’ll take the positives and the negatives and move on to Saturday’s game at Dover.”

And O’Brien was relatively impressed with last night’s hosts following their promotion from the Isthmian Premier.

He added: “They’re good on the break, they have very quick strikers and they have decent midfielders, so I think they’ll do okay this season.”

The county town chief, who had two Dorchester Town Under-18 players on the bench at Wheatsheaf Park, is looking forward to welcoming back midfielder Nick Crittenden this weekend.

He said: “We’ve got Critts back from suspension on Saturday, which is a plus, and we’ll now focus on preparing for that game.”