Benson admits cup tie was lost in the first half

Town trailed 2-0 at the break after they were punished for a poor 20 minutes, with boss Still criticising his side’s defending.

Benson said: “I think we lost it in the first half, second half we were a lot better and we played a lot more cup tie football.

“We got stuck in, but the first half we just didn’t turn up which was disappointing.

“It’s all well and good turning up second half when you’re 2-0 down with nothing to lose, but we lost it in the first half as we just weren’t good enough.”

The on-loan Swindon Town striker had made it 2-1 just before the hour mark, heading home at the second attempt from Andy Parry’s exquisite cross.

Benson thought Hatters would force a replay at the least from there, but saw Town denied time and time again by a fantastic performance from Wings keeper Lee Butcher.

He said: “I actually thought as we got that quite early in the half we’d go on and get the equaliser at least, but it just never materialised.

“Give credit to the opposition, they were at it, they were well up for it and we gave it everything second half.

“You can’t complain about the second half performance, it wasn’t lost in the second half.

“He (Butcher) did all right. I don’t think for all the possession we had second half and for all the times we got close to their box, he had a hell of a lot of saves to make.

“Tough saves anyway, he made some routines saves, but it was disappointing.”

Benson was at times given a battering by the home defence, especially the centre half pairing of Fraser Franks and Jake Gallager during the first period as he felt he had little protection from referee Ben Toner.

He said: “I was disappointed with that. I said that to him a couple of times that I felt there were a few times they were coming through the back of me to get the ball.

“But he was consistent with it, I’ll give him that. He very rarely changed his mind about giving a foul, so sometimes you’ve just got to with that.

“He was one of the refs who liked to play on, I can’t fault him for that. It just would have been nice if a couple I felt were a bit over the top, that he’d have blown up for.”

Despite the performance, Town’s players were given a fine reception from the 740 away supporters for the efforts as Benson added: “They’ve always been great since I’ve been here. You can tell they were frustrated and disappointed, as we’re out of the FA Cup.

“No fan is going to be pleased about, but they still stayed with us and got behind us in their numbers.

“They did everything they could to help us to get through to the next round and unfortunately we just came up a bit short.”

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