CHIPPENHAM Town boss Adie Mings thought that yesterday’s home defeat to Hitchin Town was a bitter pill to swallow.

All the luck favoured the visitors in green on St. Patrick’s Day as the Bluebirds’ dominance of the match counted for nothing at Hardenhuish Park.

John Frendo’s second half strike settled matters as Alan Griffin missed a penalty and Mani Randhawa was sent off late on.

“I don’t know what we’ve got to do to win a game at the moment,” said Mings.

“We’ve created three or four good chances in the first half, three or four good chances in the second half and we’ve missed a penalty – that’s the way it’s going at this moment in time.

"It’s very tough and now we’re in a massive rut that we’ve got to try and get ourselves out of.

“It doesn’t take a genius – I think that anybody who was at the game would say that we were the better side and that we’ve asked more questions.

“I think if we’d scored the penalty before half-time and with the way we played in the second half, we would have gone on to win the game.

“As it happens, it didn’t work like that.”

18-year-old striker Ben Wickens made his league debut for the Bluebirds, who welcome back Shaun Lamb from suspension for Tuesday night’s trip to Hemel Hempstead Town.