Potters Bar Town’s assistant manager James Duncan revealed there were some harsh words in the dressing room at half-time but he praised his side for delivering the goods in the second period of the 3-2 win over Heybridge Swifts.

The Scholars went in to the break trailing 2-1 after Matthew Price had scored his second four minutes into added time.

That would have been bad enough but the Swifts were down to 10 men at that point having had centre-half Jack Cawley sent off sevens minutes earlier.

And Duncan said the first-half performance had not been good enough despite Michael Murray’s late free-kick winning the day.

He said: “I was disappointed with the way they played throughout the half.

“Even when it was 11 v 11 I thought they were sharper and we looked sluggish.

“We failed to adapt to their shape, which we had spoke about before the game.

“I thought we got a good goal to get back level but to concede an injury-time goal from the second phase of a corner is disappointing.

“But the lads know that so there were a few harsh words but they did everything I asked for at half-time.

“We knew we would have a lot of the ball with them being down to 10 men. And we wanted them to threaten, play on the front foot and go forward as much as they can.

“And to be fair, there was a spell there of about 20 minutes we did that.

“When we nicked goal I thought a draw would be good but then Michael Murray has hit a bit of quality at the end.”

Duncan praised his striker’s ability with a dead ball.

“He’s got that in him,” enthused Duncan.

“Even when he doesn’t score he gets loads of assists from set-pieces and that was a top goal.”

The win lifts Town into fourth in the Bostik League North Division and with 11 games to go, Duncan has once again issued his side a challenge.

He said: “It’s the final slog and I’ve told the boys to just stay in the mix.

“We went through a little bit of a dip but that was always going to happen.

“But then we’ve challenged them to put a run of three or four wins together and get as high as they can in the table.

“And you never know where that will take you.”

Potters Bar are next in action on Saturday when they go to AFC Sudbury.