ANDY MORRISON conceded that Carmarthen Town's desire to win was greater than Connah's Quay Nomads as the Flintshire side were beaten 3-2.

Michael Bakare and Callum Morris had twice given Nomads the lead, but Greg Walters and Luke Cummings cancelled out those efforts before Liam Thomas won it for the Old Gold, who had Lewis Baldwin sent-off late on, with a 95th minute penalty.

Nomads slipped from the top of the table to third heading into the second phase of the season and Morrison believes the home side's need for victory, coupled with the absence of Laurence Wilson, Declan Poole and Ryan Wignall, was the catalyst for defeat.

"It's disappointing as they've had three shots at goal and scored three times. I find that really disappointing," said Morrison.

"It's going to catch up with you when you are playing right-backs at left-back and midfielder at centre-half.

"You are going to get found out eventually and I thought tonight was one too far for us.

"I thought we looked vulnerable and we could have exploited so many things if we had the right balance and left-footers in the right positions.

"I thought there was no fluidity to our play and I give Carmarthen credit. I thought their desire was greater than ours to get the result.

"They sail close to the line all of the time with their challenges, but there's a thin line between being reckless and aggressive, and I thought they were very aggressive and their desire to win the game was huge."

And Morrison knows Nomads need to "get back to basics" if they are to continue their title challenge over the remaining 10 games.

He continued: "We can't come down here and end up losing the game.

"We've based out principles on keeping clean sheets and being hard to beat and at the moment we aren't hard to beat.

"We aren't hard to score against and we've got to get back to basics because the better team on the night in terms of possession of the ball and chances created were Connah's Quay, but the score shows 3-2.

"I've got to go away and look at that, because I'm not interested in dominating possession, I'm not interested in overloads and creating loads of chances - I'm interested in winning games of football.

"The stats will say we were far superior, but we've lost the game and that's not good enough."

Morrison did have a small gripe with official Bryn Markham-Jones, not for the stoppage time penalty, but for the award of the free-kick that Cummings converted eight minutes from time.

"The only disappointment I have is the second goal. It's never a free-kick in a million years. There is only one person of about 300 in the stadium who thinks it's a foul," he said.

"He's given a foul and we've been really harshly punished for it.

"I'm not going to use that as an excuse, although it was a really poor decision."