Powell: Jersey Bulls 'pathetic' in Hastings loss

Jersey Bulls boss Elliot Powell said his side put on a "pathetic" first-half performance in their 1-0 loss at Hastings United in Isthmian League South East.

Hastings dominated much of the first period as Euan van der Vliet was forced to save well from Jordan Mase's 13th minute lob.

But the Bulls keeper flapped at a corner four minutes later and Eugene Asike was on hand to blast in on the line to put Hastings 1-0 up.

Bulls lost centre-back Luke Campbell to injury five minutes before half-time as he tried to stop a James Stone attempt as the islanders struggled to deal with the resulting corner.

Bulls boss Elliot Powell made three changes at half time with one of those - James Sunley - having their first serious effort as his shot was cleared off the line 12 minutes after the restart.

Miguel Carvalho curled an effort over the home bar with 15 minutes left while James Carr forced a good save soon after, but the island side could not find a breakthrough.

The defeat keeps the islanders in mid-table while Hastings move away from the relegation places.

"We didn't do enough in that first half," Powell told BBC Radio Jersey.

"Our physicality was nowhere near where it needed to be and we got ran over the top of. We got bullied and that's the result.

"I think to start with we've probably got the wrong shape, so as a management team we apologise to the players on that front and apologise to the fans on it.

"But after that there's still plenty of opportunities for the lads to have dug themselves out of the hole.

"We had chances, we didn't defend well enough at times either and the attitude from our lads at times wasn't good enough.

"If Campbell hadn't got injured it would have been a quadruple substitution at half-time.

"We wanted to leave one back in case there was an injury but it was a pathetic performance in that first half."