"I'm bitterly disappointed," says McGrath after Town throw away two-goal lead in defeat to Barrow

Two goals from Ben Tollitt put Town in control after an hour but Barrow scored three times in the last 15 minutes to inflict a painful defeat on The Shaymen and end their unbeaten run of six games.

"That's the worst I've felt after a defeat this season," McGrath told the Courier.

"The Altrincham and Aldershot games were poor performances but we thought we'd turned a corner and 2-0 up with 25, 30 minutes to go, we misplaced passes, we were caught offside when we shouldn't have been, we had two v one situations.

"They're all things that go in Barrow's favour and couple that with the fact that centre-halves didn't win a header second-half, full-backs don't win a header second-half, doesn't allow midfielders to jump on second-balls, so every first and second contact we lost, this is after we scored.

"Up until we scored I thought we were really good, really good first-half, and then we melted, we didn't have anybody on the pitch who stood up to the test of a team that narrow up and go long.

"It was two massively contrasting styles of football, one team that lumps it long, narrows you up and hits the big man, our style is to be expansive and play, and they affected their game plan more than we affected ours second-half.

"You don't get anything at half-time or after 65 minutes. I'm bitterly disappointed.

"In my short tenure as a manager, that's the worst I've felt after a game."

When asked if he felt his side thought they had the game won at 2-0 up, McGrath said: "Maybe, but you need players mature enough to go 'right boys, we're 2-0 up, no chances, no crosses in the box', but we don't stop crosses into the box, we lose headers.

"Raheem gets sent off because we miss a header, they're in behind and he drags him back.

"It was one of the worst 25 minutes I've seen of a team that is supposed to represent myself, Pablo and Big Jon."

McGrath said all three of Barrow's goals should have been prevented.

"Absolutely. The first one, Flinty should win the header, Rasheem comes inside to win it, loses it, it goes to the guy at the back stick, comes inside, shoots.

"The second one, Zak loses a header in the middle of the park, shies away from it, hits his shoulder, they go wide, cross, runs off the back of Hobbo.

"And the third, Will Hugill's got him back post and just doesn't affect him at all, free header. I've said to him in there, you don't get second chanves in football, you don't get to re-run that cross again.

"You have to do the job on the night and we didn't."

McGrath added: "I said to the boys in there, they're the opportunities you've got to take to bump yourself up to fourth or fifth in the table.

"If we're going to do anything this year, they're the moments.

"It sickens me that we were that close to getting into those play-offs. Really disappointed, I felt we were out-manned in that last 25 minutes."