UNHAPPY Old Halesonians director of rugby Gary Cox described this week’s 28-21 defeat at Old Northamptonians as one continual chapter of disaster.

Cox criticised his players' attitude as Hales slipped behind rivals Scunthorpe in the race for National League Division Three Midlands’ play-off place.

Cox said: “We’d put 41 points past Northamptonians earlier in the season and I think some of my players turned up with the attitude they were automatically going to win and that it would be easy.

“Northamptonians have improved since that first meeting and brought in some new players, consequently they are a much better side now.

“We had considerable weight advantage in the scrum and looked to use it to our advantage."

But problems began to plague Hales in the first ten minutes when they lost fly half Ollie Raynor through injury. Matters worsened when Hales then had loosehead prop Matt Young sent off.

An astonished Cox conceded: “There was a scuffle between the two scrum halves. Matt Young then walked over and gave the Northamptonians scrum half a slap round the chops. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It was ridiculous, uncalled for and completely unnecessary. I had no complaints about the red card.”

Hales were then handed a yellow card, reducing them to 13 players, while their early lead was wiped out as they trailed 19-12 by half time.

Cox added: “The irony was that with a man less in the scrum, we were still shoving them backwards."

But Hales' afternoon continued to go downhill. No sooner than they been restored to 14, they went back down to 13 when Richard Taylor was sent to the sin bin. To make matters worse, hooker Sam Jones had to leave the pitch with injury.

It meant the game had to continue with uncontested scrums leaving Hales without their main source of domination.

Hales were trailing 28-14 when play had to be stopped and transferred to another pitch after one of the home players sustained a neck injury and couldn’t be moved.

Cox said: “We found ourselves playing up a massive slope, yet we managed to get on top and pulled the score back to 28-21 when we ran out of time and numbers.

“I’ve effectively lost six players for Saturday’s game against Peterborough, but we will regroup and go again.”