CHIPPENHAM Town manager Mark Collier said individual errors cost his side dear as they lost 3-1 at home to relegation-threatened Weston-super-Mare in National League South on Saturday.

The Bluebirds made a terrible start to proceedings, conceding twice early on before Nat Jarvis pulled one back to give the home side a chance going in at half-time.

Yet, more sub-par defending resulted in Chippenham shipping a third goal, Collier was once again left frustrated at the fact his side conceded three times in a game.

He said: “When you’re 2-0 down early on, you’re fearing the worst because you haven’t started very well and you’re up against a decent Weston side who certainly aren’t a bottom-three side.

“Nat Jarvis got us back in the game and we’ve started the second half quite well. We’ve forced their keeper into a couple of decent saves and you’re thinking we’ll go on and get another. If we do that, we can go on and win the game.

“Unfortunately, we’ve defended poorly and we’re 3-1 down and I’ve said to the players after, “you’re not going to win any games if you concede three goals”.

"Individual errors have cost us and we thought we’d rectified that, but that has come back to haunt us."

Despite a brief string of poor results in both league and cup, Collier is immensely proud of his team so far this season and says the future is bright for Chippenham.

He said: “We’ve got 29 points from 19 games this season, whereas last year we had 29 points from 29 games, so we’ve had a really positive start to the season.

“There’s no doom and gloom for me. We’re in a big, powerful league and a league that we should be proud to be in.

“We’re going to have to fight for every point that comes along but we must remain positive and we’ll go again next week.

“Anyone can lose a game in this league, so I expect players to come in on Tuesday with a big smile on their faces and we can start planning for a difficult game against Hungerford next weekend.

“We’re trying to establish ourselves in the National League. We’re trying to establish ourselves in a league that I think is the top table of non-league football and that’s a difficult ask, but we’re doing OK and we’ll be fine.”