Robbie Blake takes pride in Bognor’s Sussex Cup loss on penalties – and says it can inspire them to a better season

The forrmer Burnley, Bradford and Leeds striker saw the agony of a shootout defeat to end his first full season in charge of the Rocks – and said he and his troops could take many positives from a final in which he thought they were the better side and could have won comfortably after creating the best of the chances.

Many of the Rocks players who featured at Brighton in an absorbing match that finished 0-0 in 90 minutes and was won 8-7 in the shootout by the Rebels will be part of the squad who next season will be aiming to push for the Isthmian premier top five after finishing 14th this term.

Blake said it must be remembered it was a very young squad and they should be given credit not only for their performance in the final, but for reaching the Sussex showpiece by beating the likes of Eastbourne Borough and Brighton’s U21s along the way.

Cup final player ratings.

How the cup final unfolded – and finished so dramatically.

Blake said: “We had enough chances to win the game comfortably – I really do believe that – and that makes you proud of the players because every supoorter of our club will know we’ve just come unstuck at the end.”

Blake did not feel the occasion and the Rocks’ performance necessarily made up for an inconsistent Isthmian premier season.

"As a player you want to be successful and then you want to transfer that into being a manager or a coach, so I feel that while we struggled in the league in terms of position, a lot of the games were fine margins and that’s what we have to get better with,” he said.

"We have got a very young team and the older you get the more experience you get and you learn to manage games better.

"It was disappointing to lose but it doesn’t outweigh the disappointment of the league and I know we have to get stronger and have to recruit better and that process has already started before this game.

"We know we have to be higher in the league and hopefully the players that we keep from the final will have seen tonight that we’re not that far away. It’s one or two positions we need to be stronger in and we can have a good run at it.

"I said to the players in the huddle in the game, as disappointed as I was, I was very proud of the players and that’s got to be a springboard, a stepping stone to be better in everything we do next year. That night should stand us in good stead and players who deal with disappointment better generally become the better players.

"It’s always tough to lose on penalties but the reality is there’s always one winner and one loser. The disappointing thing was we got into so many great areas to score and then that lack of composure, lack of ruthlessness, saw us undone in the end. It’s frustrating.

"We put ourselves in a position, through the 90 minutes and then the penalties, to have a penalty at the end to win it and I feel for Macca (Josh McCormick, who missed the fifth Rocks kick). It’s not nice. But it makes me proud of the players the way they went about it.

"We weren't really hanging on in the game. As the game went on we died a little bit in terms of our energy but I thought we were the team that had the most quality."

Blake firmly believes the amount of good young talent in the Bognor team is exciting. “Hopefully they can go on and keep improving,” he said. “But if you can have a couple of senior players, you have that mixture, it helps the younger lads. It’s when things are not going so well, and how they deal with that.

"But listen, I’m extremely proud. In the semi-final Brighton fielded a young team but I think we had five or six players under-19 and that was againat a Premier League outfit.

"At our level the younger players, if they’re really doing well, tend to get sold on to better clubs and we understand that – we know where we are as a club. But you’re proud to stand there and know you have a really young team who can perform like that.”

Blake paid tribute to the Rocks fans, who were there in good number among the total crowd of just under 3,000 and made themselves heard, The boss said the club knew they could count on their supporters to back them to the hilt against their rivals. “If you want to play one team it’s Worthing,” he said.

"I went to the Worthing game on Sunday and was disappointed for Adam they lost to Oxford City . If they’d won that they’d have had another game in two days’ time so he couldn’t have played the team he played tonight but on the other side of it, you want to pit your wits against the best and I think, give or take, that was his best team he had out. That shows how well our players played."

Blake admitted the Rocks were not ‘overly impressed’ with their final league position this season but added: “It’s been my first full season as a manager and I’ve learned so much on the journey so far. I know we have to improve and I think we will improve. But tonight is all about positivity. I felt we were the better team and we have to take that on and take that into the summer.

"If you can’t get motivated for these games you shouldn’t be in the sport – it’s the games like Hornchurch away or Cheshunt away where it’s harder. We have to do the ugly side better and deal with the physical teams and the long balls. Once the players go back and reflect on this they should be really positive and I’m hoping the players grasp that and see what can be achieved."

See more on the cup final on this website in the coming days and in the Bognor Observer and Worthing Herald next week