MIDFIELDER Gary Horgan was in the thick of the action against Crawley on Saturday and described his side's defeat as a real shame.

The 27-year-old was the victim of a late challenge by Crawley's Justin Gregory that led to the visitors being reduced to ten men.

But Chippenham could not press home the advantage in the few minutes remaining and Horgan felt it was a missed opportunity.

"I thought to be honest we deserved at least a point," he said. "They came down and they always stayed in it, which you would expect for a side that are challenging up there at the top.

"They ground out a result which is what we were doing to sides a little bit last year. We were not really playing teams out of sight but were staying in games and nicking a goal. They got their goal and were very organised and we couldn't seem to break them down although we did have the chances to win it."

Horgan thought Chippenham had been the more industrious team in the first half and should have been in front at the break.

"If we had taken the lead early on I could have seen us going on to win the came quite comfortably," he said. "For the whole of the first half and a lot of the second half we were first to the ball all across the pitch.

"It was just a shame that we didn't score and press home on the advantage we did have on them."

He believed the referee made the right decision to show Gregory his second yellow card of the game after the Crawley midfielder caught him with a late tackle. "It was just a shame it didn't happen a bit earlier really because we didn't have too much time to capitalise on it,'' he said.

"We had a couple of chances near the end when Charlie went close and Scotty had a good effort on the volley. If one of those had gone in it would have been a different game.''