YORK City boss Sam Collins admitted his team did not play “anywhere near as well” as they can during a second-half surrender at Telford.

The Minstermen led through a 36th-minute Macaulay Langstaff header in Shropshire, but Daryl Knights levelled the scores with a second-half strike before Stephan Morley’s stoppage-time free kick secured a 2-1 triumph for the hosts.

It was City’s first defeat in seven games, but Collins made no excuses for a lacklustre second 45 minutes, saying: “It was disappointing to concede the goal right at the end but, in the second half, we didn’t play anywhere near as well as we did in the first half.

“We stopped playing football and let them back into the game and we’ve got to learn from that. Once we started giving the ball away, it pinned us in a bit and Adam (Bartlett) had already made a couple of good saves prior to their equaliser.

“We didn’t get the ball out to our wing-backs in the second half and just sat in and let them dictate the game. We didn’t get up the pitch at all and, if you keep giving the ball away, it’s difficult to create a chance or score a goal.”

Sean Newton hacked down home sub Andre Brown for the foul that led to Telford’s last-gasp winner, but Collins absolved the City skipper of any blame for the defeat, arguing: “It was a good foul by Sean.

“He used his experience to do what he needed to do because, if he had let their player go through, we would have had an overload on the edge of the box. But the goal came from us not being organised on the edge of their box and their lad had showed he has got a good left foot and it was a sucker punch for us.”

Collins had been satisfied earlier with the standard of his team’s first-half display, though, adding: “It was a well-worked goal at a good time and we managed the game well in the first half, because they hardly had a chance and we defended our box quite well.”