TRISTAN Lewis reckons some of his players had one eye on their summer holidays during Saturday’s game against AFC Hornchurch.

United signed off with a 2-0 loss to the already-relegated Urchins in the final game of a bitterly disappointing season for the Blue Square South club.

Lewis and co-boss Delroy Preddie were successful in keeping the club in the division, but he believes his team had taken their foot off the gas.

He said: “The last few games have been difficult because we knew what we needed to do and the lads had gone on their summer holidays a bit.

“When you’ve already got the points you need, it is quite tough to get the reaction you want from the players, not through the want of trying on our part though.

“We had quite a few injuries as well this weekend and we were struggling to put a side out. Some of the boys who played weren’t really fit to play.

“I thought possession-wise we did well in the first half but we didn’t have a shot on goal. We said to them in the
dressing room that if you carry on like that, you’ll end up getting beaten and that’s what happened.

“It’s disappointing because we’d like to have ended the season on a high, but the job we were asked to do was keeping the club in the league and we’ve done that.”

Two teams with nothing left to play for on the final day was always going to make for a turgid game, although United’s fans and their fancy dress at least added a bit of colour to the proceedings.

Hayes and Yeading enjoyed long spells with the ball but created little going forward and were made to pay for their lack of penetration when Hornchurch struck twice in the second half in the space of four minutes.

Urchins number nine Martin Tuohy was the man who did the damage after a United defender collected the ball on the edge of the area, before going down under a challenge, and the ball fell nicely for Tuohy to slam home the opener.

The Hornchurch forward wrapped up the points with his second a few moments later when he seized on a Kieron St Aimie cross and slotted the ball past Brandon Hall to put the game beyond United.