DORCHESTER Town boss Steve Thompson was left disappointed after a “scrappy” 2-1 loss to Merthyr Town in their Evo-Stik Southern Premier Division tussle at the Avenue Stadium.

Two goals from Martyrs’ dangerman Ian Traylor gave the visitors a cushion, which looked in danger of deflating when Luke Winsper’s rasping drive found the top corner on 61 minutes.

However, despite late Magpies’ pressure, the hosts could not fashion a leveller as they were handed only their second home loss since the turn of the year.

Speaking to Echosport, Thompson again pointed towards a heavy Avenue Stadium surface as a contributing factor to a fragmented game.

He said: “Most games will be scrappy here. The pitch is very hard to play fluent football on. Merthyr are a footballing team but they would probably say it was a scrappy game as well from their point of view.

“There were some chances and we had a good one early on. If we scored that it might have been a different first half but we never really got going. They were arguably the better team and came in 1-0 up.

“The second goal was poor to concede within two minutes of the restart. After that we dominated but they always looked dangerous on the break, so I can’t have too many complaints. We did recover from 2-0 and put in a grandstand last 35 minutes, hit the bar twice and scored, but it’s still disappointing to lose at home.”

But Thompson was quick to credit Traylor for two moments of quality that ultimately separated the two sides.

He said: “He’s got good pace and for the second goal he exploited us. The first goal was a poor mistake, a backpass to the keeper that never had any chance of getting there.

“It’s two poor goals to concede, particularly the first one. It’s disappointing to lose at home but the crowd stuck with us and they got behind us in the last 35 minutes.

“I can have no complaints about the result, even though on the balance of chances and hitting the bar twice we probably deserved a draw.

“Merthyr will think they’ve come here and done a good job in a scrappy-ish game with lots of chances.”

Elaborating on the Merthyr goals, Thompson felt it was a “tactical” decision that had led to the Magpies’ downfall.

He said: “For me the first one was a tactical decision when I asked the full-backs to play forward whenever possible, and centre-backs, I felt it was on to play forward and we played a really poor backpass.

“For me, that’s more tactical. The second might be just a pace thing. Sometimes you can get exploited on that front and we did for the second goal, but I was far more disappointed with the first goal.”