Queens Park Rangers manager Ian Holloway admitted that he was "encouraged" by the Hoops' display in a 2-1 defeat at home to Brighton & Hove Albion on Friday night.

The Seagulls moved back to the top of the Championship table, 12 points clear of third place, so it was never going to be an easy ride for Rangers.

But Holloway's men gave it a go, and can count themselves a touch unlucky that they did not take something from the game.

Conor Washington in action against Brighton

He said: "If the league is looking at us and asking did we have a go – yes we did.

"I think the QPR crowd will go away knowing we had a good go. We possibly deserved a point and I thought they found it very difficult to cope with us, which is encouraging.

"But that's three defeats in a row and it hurts like mad. I don't like this feeling, but I'll take the positives and we'll go into the Easter fixtures in confident mood because that's what we're like as a group."

After a goalless first half, Brighton struck twice in six minutes to effectively put the game out of reach of Rangers, though the hoe side piled on the pressure late on and halved the deficit through Matt Smith's header.

Holloway added: "Their first goal was poor from our point of view. We didn’t communicate well enough to each other and then we tried to play offside, which is the easy way out.

"I can understand why we tried to do that, but for me you have just got to try and get there. It was a really sickening goal.

"But their free-kick was world class. You have to give them credit.

"Brighton are a really good team, but having gone 2-0 down, we came strong late on and I thought our subs made a big difference."