MANAGER Steve Riley rued “a bad day at the office” after ten-man AFC Totton had slumped to a 4-0 Southern One South & West defeat at Cinderford.

The Stags travelled to Gloucestershire in third spot, but Ethan Moore’s hat-trick combined with a red card for Totton’s former Saints academy goalkeeper Steve Mowthorpe sent them crashing to their fourth league loss of the campaign.

Moore and George Lloyd had already punished poor defending by the visitors when Mowthorpe got his marching orders for denying a goalscoring opportunity with around 35 minutes gone.

Goalkeeping coach Steve Hollick deputised and saved the resulting penalty but more sloppy play allowed Moore to make it 3-0 at half-time and complete his treble midway through the second half.

Totton had a chance to reply when Zac Mouland earned and then scored from the penalty spot but, bizarrely, the referee instructed him to retake it because keeper Alex Harris had been holding a water bottle at the time.

To add insult to injury, Mouland’s second attempt was saved.

“I’ve never seen anything like it in my life!” said the disbelieving Riley. “The ref had blown for the penalty to be taken and the ’keeper should have put the bottle down, but the Cinderford players all complained and Zac was asked to retake it.

“He’s put the first penalty in and, if it had stood, you just don’t know...

“They (Cinderford) had had a long cup game on Tuesday and they looked tired even playing against ten men and we were stretching them.

“But it was a bad day at the office and individual errors cost us. It didn’t help that we had Rob Flooks suspended and Nathaniel Sherborne unavailable, so we were missing two of our more experienced players.

“We showed a lack of quality in possession and switched off at key moments.”