“I take some responsibility for that because although Tuesday’s match against Coalville took a lot out of us, we really ought to have had a light training session on Thursday to get the stiffness out of our legs

“But I gave the players a night off as I thought that they deserved it after the Coalville victory but, in retrospect, it was the wrong decision.

“We scored at the right time but we also switched off at times and were punished.

“I was disappointed that after two consecutive clean sheets to have conceded twice after we had looked comfortable at 2-0 and at 3-1.

“We had our backs to the wall in the last 20 minutes but I must give some credit to Nirvana who battled well throughout and gave us quite a few worrying moments.

“Losing Jonathan Williams (pictured) to a double yellow card dismissal didn’t help but I was disappointed that the Nirvana players and management were constantly in the referee’s ear, disputing every decision and clearly influencing the referee to bring Williams’ game to a conclusion when a quiet word would have surely been the right course of action.

“We created 5 goal scoring chances and scored four times whilst Nirvana had about eight chances and could only score twice.

“I know Nirvana a have had a couple of excellent seasons and are unbeaten in the United Counties League this season but we’ve got NPL Premier Division quality players throughout the side and we should have exerted our superiority better than we did.

“The players are more used to playing at bigger and well appointed stadiums but they have got to accept that in the FA Cup, you are faced with all different types of grounds and pitches.

“The ground might have been a shock to the system but we should have expected that and adapted better than we did.”

Looking ahead to the next few games, Albans is relishing the challenges that will present themselves.

“We’ve got two tough games coming up, away at Leek Town on Saturday and then a midweek trip to Spalding United

“There is no need for a team talk when we go to these sorts of places as the players know what to expect and are also fully aware of what they need to do to get a result.

“The players set the standard against Coalville and that is the type of performance that we need to reproduce in all games this season.

“Whilst we didn’t do so well defensively at Nirvana, we have good characters in the dressing room and we will improve as a team as the season progresses”, concluded the Belper manager.