Embarrassing defended blasted by boss – but Worthing are still in the FA Cup

He said they were lucky to be in the third qualifying round after a display at Eastbourne Borough in which he said some of their efforts were unacceptable.

Worthing won 1-0 thanks to Jake Robinson’s goal on his first competitive start for 13 months and a late wonder-save from Roco Rees.

Eastbourne Boro v Worthing in 113 pictures.

But Hinshelwood was far from happy, saying they’d have to sharpen up, or be dropped, for a testing run of league and cup games against the likes of Maidstone (National South), Crawley Town (Sussex Senior Cup) and Whitehawk, their Isthmian premier visitors in the next round of the FA Cup.

The boss said after the win at Priory Lane: “We’re very lucky. I thought it was a bad performance. We let too many crosses come in and people drift in and get shots off.

"The defending in wide areas was embarrassing. I suppose it’s a sign of a good team when you can play as badly as that and get through. But I said to the players ‘We can’t accept that’.

"We don’t have enough of a killing edge in either box and we were lucky Roco made some great saves.”

Rees’ late leaping save to deny Zak Emmerson has made national headlines but Hinshelwood felt the ball had gone out before he had to make the leaping stop – which he said was typical of some of the officials’ decisions Worthing had seen this season.

Hinshelwood promised harder-than-ever work on the training ground to make sure the players understood they could not perform like that again.

“We will analyse quite how poor we were and put it right,” he said. “There was nothing to build on apart from Roco’s performance. Players need to man up. We have to work hard – that’s the bread and butter for any team.”

Worthing go to Maidstone on Saturday for another stiff test of their league credentials then host Whitehawk a week later. The winners of that tie will be just one win from the first ound proper.

There’s no date yet for the SSC tie.