VETERAN defender Sam Ricketts admitted it was a less than ideal situation when he was introduced to the play-off final yesterday after less than three minutes.

The 33-year-old was dropped to the bench with the return of Harry Toffolo and Nathan Thompson - proving his fitness to earn a start - but it didn’t take long before the Wolves loanee was introduced.

Preston tested Thompson early with a ball over the top and found Town’s skipper wanting as he gave away a free-kick, which led to the opening goal and, in the process, felt his hamstring give up on him and was stretchered off.

“It’s the worst circumstances to come on so early in the game,” said Ricketts to the Adver.

“It was devastating for Nath. He has worked pretty hard to get back fit and unfortunately, two or three minutes into the game, his hamstring didn’t work hard enough for him and he was forced off. Obviously, conceding an early goal as well; it wasn’t the greatest of circumstances to come on.”

That early goal set the tone for what turned out to be a day to forget for the 21,000 travelling Town fans, but even with the scoreline at 3-0 to the Lilywhites at the break, the players still believed they could get into the game.

“The disappointment was the early goal,” added Ricketts. “I think it played into Preston’s hands. They know how we try to play, controlling the game by passing the ball, and it allowed them to sit deeper and hit us on the break.

“As a team we like to get teams to come out at us so we can pick them off a little bit, but it took until we were 2-0 down to start passing the ball and controlling the game.

“We had a great chance (Micahel Smith’s first half header). If that goes in it’s 2-1. Unfortunately,about a minute late,r they go up the other end and score again and it’s 3-0 and the timing of the fourth goal finally sealed it.

“At half-time we were saying ‘don’t forget we were 3-0 up against Sheffield United and they came back at us’, so there is no reason why we couldn’t come back at them. Before the game, we were really confident to come in at 3-0 up ourselves but unfortunately it didn’t work out that way.”