Matt Taylor said the players need to ‘take responsibility’ for the errors that cost the Robins, as they lost 4-0 at home to Carlisle United.
Despite a promising first half, goals either side of half-time left the home side up against it.
Ashley Nadesan scored just before half-time, with Regan Slatter bagging a brace, one of which came less than a minute into the second half. Jamie Devitt scored a free-kick midway through the latter period too.
Taylor supported his new boss, Richie Wellens, and said that it is the players who must take responsibility for the result.
“Football management is an extremely difficult job. The new manager has come in and the ideas he is trying to get across to us will take time.
“It is as simple as that. It is a new group for him, so he needs as much help as humanly possible.
“As players, let’s take responsibility for the errors that we have made.
“At times, especially in what I class as a man’s game, you need to hold your hands up and say ‘I made a mistake’ and we will learn from it.
“We can’t change the performance. What we can do is change the next performance and digesting what’s happened today will be tough.
“And hopefully it will be tough for my team-mates. I know it will be tough for me.”
In terms of emotion, the veteran’s response was simple.
“I feel extreme disappointment. In terms of possession, we have used the ball well. We have made individual errors and ultimately been punished for them.
“I think the momentum towards the end of the first half was with us and we had a good chat at half-time and we were pleased with the way things were going, albeit we were 1-0 down.
“But so soon after the restart, we conceded and lost that momentum.
“We are a team that ultimately is low on confidence, so not scoring with the chances we have had has probably made us retreat more so than we should have.
“But there are no excuses for today’s performance – we weren’t good enough. We have a week now where we need to work on lots of things.
"We will review the performance, individually and collectively, and try and move forwards from it.”
