DARREN Edmondson expressed his intense frustration after Barrow AFC blew a great chance to register their first National League away win of the campaign at FC Halifax Town yesterday.

The Bluebirds took the lead through Andy Cook’s 54th-minute header.

But despite being the superior side in the second period, AFC fell apart in the latter stages.

Halifax took full advantage with goals from Sean Tuton – who equalised on 79 minutes – CJ Hamilton and Jordan Burrow earning the hosts a first victory of the campaign with a 3-1 success.

Not for the first time this season the Barrow boss was left to bemoan the cheap nature of the opposition’s goals.

Edmondson said: “We gave poor goals away, I’m not going to lie, you can’t hide behind that.

“For 80-odd minutes we were so comfortable it was untrue.

“But, as we have found out before in previous games, if you don’t get the second goal you leave yourselves open.

“But then you can’t legislate for the individual mistakes we made for all three goals.

“Their third goal is late on (Burrow netted in the first minute of injury-time) and it was probably irrelevant.

“But we lost our composure when they scored. That got their tails up and then in the end it’s a poor last eight or nine minutes from what was a very good away performance.

“We controlled the ball, possession and the tempo and we just couldn’t get that second goal.

“We had enough chances to win it again. And that’s ultimately what’s costing us at the moment. We’re not getting that our second goal and punishing teams and you get punished at this level.”

The disappointing result leaves AFC sitting 18th in the National League table, having picked up just seven points from their opening seven games.

And when Edmondson was asked why he felt the late collapse and errors happened, he responded: “Yes, we’ve got to look at that.

“It’s probably a bit early to make comment, I’ll be able to watch the match back tomorrow and look at that.

“And that’s just pressure, that’s what pressure does to people. You make bad decisions and goals change games.

“And they lifted what was a very flat Halifax performance. You could hear our fans all afternoon until the last 10 minutes when they were obviously just as dumbfounded as we were sat on the sidelines.

“I think it is purely down to handling pressure and seeing games through.”

Edmondson confirmed Jason Walker was not injured when he was substituted during the second half, but instead felt the striker was ‘just getting tired’.

The boss also praised the superb support his side received from AFC’s fans, with a 250-plus away following tucked away inside the Shay.

“It was a brilliant following,” said Edmondson (below) after Barrow failed to build on Saturday’s 1-0 home success over Southport.

“I’m gutted for them, they are rightly angry.

“But at the same time we’ve all got to collectively take a step back and look at the good things and make sure we take them into the next game.

“Games come thick and fast in this league, it’s an unforgiving league.

“But we need to make sure that we start to cut those (mistakes) out.

“I felt that on Saturday we’d started to build something. And then today, for the first 80 minutes, we were very good.

“We couldn’t get that second and a third that maybe would have justified the performance.

“And then from afar it now looks like it’s a comfortable home result for Halifax, which it wasn’t.”