AFTER suffering a deeply disappointing defeat today in the FA Cup, Tommy Wright admitted his team is too inconsistent.

Darlington lost 1-0 at home to Bradford (Park Avenue), the club exiting the cup competition in the second qualifying round and doing so limply.

It was a poor performance by Quakers at Blackwell Meadows, where they have lost four of their six matches this campaign, yet a fortnight ago they beat previously unbeaten AFC Telford United 3-0.

Also this season has seen Wright’s side play well in matches against Spennymoor Town, Blyth and Brackley.

Wright said: “For 45 minutes we were sloppy. I thought we were quite lazy if I’m honest. Out of possession people were looking at each other waiting for someone else to do the ugly side of the game.

“Too few don’t like the doing the ugly side of the game and that’s defending. Good teams need a good balance.

“I’m sure there’ll be a lot of criticism flying about, but we have got to get back to the drawing board and get this team functioning better.

“I’m not ready to forget today yet and it will take a few days to sink in.”

Darlington were a long second best during a first half that saw Bradford’s Danny Lowe scored the only goal of the game, a long range effort after intercepting a pass.

Wright added: “Any way to go out of the FA Cup is disappointing. If we’d played well today and still got beat it would’ve been disappointing. That first 45 minutes, we can’t play like that and expect to get anything from a game of football.

“Second half we looked better and created some good chances, but even then the team’s cohesion didn’t seem great.

“When you’re playing in games like this and looking for a spark you need your best players to step and I don’t think they did today.

“We set high standards, we have proven this can be a good team, but the inconsistency is showing too often.

“Good teams have off days, but we’re having too many off days.”