Yeovil Town captain Luke McCormick was taking a balanced view about seeing his side’s unbeaten start to the new season come to an end with a 3-2 defeat at Southend United on Saturday.
The skipper netted his fifth goal of the season shortly before the hour mark in Essex to put the Glovers 2-0 ahead before three goals in just 19 second half minutes saw them fall to a loss.
Speaking to BBC Somerset’s Mark Stillman after the game, McCormick said: “Obviously we’re devastated with the result, being 2-0 up here and then ending up losing the game. I think the goals are avoidable, but how we deal with it, we’ll review it. We won’t get too high or too low, and we’ll go again.
“This is probably one of the toughest places to come in the division and I thought we deserved to be 1-0 up at half-time in terms of the chances and the box entries that we had. Then we’ve obviously gone 2-0 up and whilst I think the free-kick is a brilliant finish, the other two goals were avoidable.
“I think today gives us a real sniff and a real taste of what it’s like to be right at the top of this division and I don’t think we’re far off it. We don’t want to get too carried away, but we’re not far off it.”
Having gone 2-0 ahead after a swift counter attack after 58 minutes, Yeovil conceded a free-kick on the edge of the area eight minutes later and Southend midfielder Darren Oldaker stepped up to fire home a stunning goal. Then 13 minutes later, forward Leon Chambers-Parillon drew the game level before substitute Promise Omochere, the striker on loan from Bristol Rovers, shrugged off a challenge to smash home a winner with five minutes remaining.
McCormick said: “The free-kick was the free-kick and then their fans get right behind them. They got booed off at half-time and then, when they flip the switch and start getting behind the boys, obviously it’s a really tough environment to play in and you saw it at 3-2. I just said in the dressing room that we started (the match) showing for the ball, we started playing and we looked a threat and we needed that when we went 2-0 up. But, like I said, there’s no name-calling, there’s no blame.
“Obviously, being 2-0 up makes it feel a lot worse, but it’s three points. I think if we were to play them again, on another day we could’ve come away with three points. It’s all about moments in football and they had more moments than we did, so we go back to the drawing board and we go again.“