CRESTFALLEN Colin Hopkins says his Downton recruits need to take responsibility and “look in the mirror” after crashing to their sixth defeat in Wessex Division One.

The Robins’ boss was left scratching his head during the 2-3 home defeat to Pewsey Vale as his side, stuck second from bottom, have only scraped together two points from eight matches.

As with much of Downton’s troubles this season, they fell behind early on to Gareth Robb’s goal inside seven minutes.

Ben Rankin restored parity for the hosts but they were left chasing the game again when they gave away a penalty. Tom Ritchie despatched into Charlie Aldridge’s left corner.

Trailing at half time, Hopkins said some strong words in search of an imminent response: “It took some home truths from me at half-time to get a better performance in the second half. Richard Payne made a couple of fantastic saves to keep Pewsey in the game but we left ourselves far too much to come back from going 3-1 down against a side high on confidence.”

But to Hopkins’ dismay, Ritchie scored a second goal shortly after to stretch the visitors’ lead to 1-3.

Rankin got a second with an excellent right-footed finish to inject some hope into Downton but they lacked conviction with further opportunities.

He added: “A lot of people have said to me we deserved something out of the game and should not have had a penalty awarded against us, but I’m afraid some of my players need to take a look in the mirror and understand that we have only ourselves to blame for losing.”

Downton’s only win of the campaign came in the Wiltshire Senior Cup last month and they look to progress further against Highworth Town on Saturday (3pm), before visiting league rivals Amesbury Town in the Hospital Cup.