PAUL Carden admits his Warrington Town side did not do enough to beat Ashton United tonight.

Yellows fell to their first defeat of the season at Cantilever Park as John Pritchard’s stunning first-half effort was enough to secure a 1-0 win for the Robins.

After the game, Carden said his side “lacked character” as they enjoyed plenty of possession in the second half but struggled to break down the visitors.

“There’s times when, for whatever reason, it’s not your day but you need to have players that will pull you together and dog a result out,” he said.

“That’s what they’ve done. They haven’t played football or opened us up in any way.

“We haven’t done that either, but they’ve had something to hold onto from our poor play.

“I think we lacked character. We’ve got experienced players right through the team, but we’ve lacked character.

“The front four were flat with no movement, we didn’t pull them about and their two centre-halves looked great as we had nothing to hit.

“We made Phil Baker look like all he wants to do is shell it forward and he’s far from that.

“Our crossing was poor, I don’t think we put a cross in from open play. We’ve got what we deserved.”

Pritchard’s goal illuminated a dour contest as he unleashed a 30-yard rocket that left Yellows keeper Tony McMillan with no chance.

However, Carden was adamant the goal could have been prevented.

“We’ve been too open and tried to go short from a throw-in but we had a poor set ball,” he said.

“It meant a misplaced pass which has ended up with them scoring a worldie.

“It’s the same as last Tuesday at Lancaster, we’ve been undone by a goal from 25-30 yards. That was all they needed because we didn’t look like scoring.”