Stanley manager John Coleman rued his side’s profligacy as Exeter City escaped from the Store First Stadium with a 3-2 victory.

Goals from John O’Sullivan and Shay McCartan weren’t enough for the Reds as Liam Sercombe, Tom Nichols and Matt Grimes scored for the visitors to give them all three points.

“It’s disappointing,” Coleman said, “We didn’t put into practice what we trained; we didn’t press them as much as I thought we should have done.

“We’ve created more chances than them; they’ve had four shots on our goal and scored three of them. They’ve been more ruthless than us and that’s what won them the game.

“They haven’t been better than us on the night. They’ve played some pretty football but not really hurt us.

“We’ve missed three good chances in the first half before they’ve scored and on another night we’d have got a penalty early on.”

The boss was disappointed with the nature of Exeter’s third goal, claiming that the decision to award a free-kick, which Matt Grimes scored from, was questionable.

“We get ourselves back into the game at 2-1 then you get a farcical free-kick. It’s a great free-kick by the lad but it’s not a foul.

“These things can sometimes conspire against you and it’s just not your night so you’ve got to move on and go to the next game.

“We’ll play a lot worse than that and win,” he added.

Nonetheless, the Scouser was less than pleased with his side’s ruthlessness in the final third.

“I thought some of the football we played was good but it was a pity that we were wasteful in front of goal. Some of our shooting was appalling, there was no conviction in it.

“If we’d have taken one of the chances in the first half and took the lead we’d have won the game.

“For the chances we had tonight, we’ve got to be winning those games.”