GRAHAM Heathcote admitted Altrincham had been guilty of complacency, but readily shouldered his share of the blame after a seven-game unbeaten run ended in dramatic and controversial circumstances at Forest Green Rovers.

Leading 3-1 at half-time, Alty were rocked by three goals in eight minutes, including a hotly-disputed penalty, and further stunned in injury-time when an apparently legitimate equaliser by Colin Little was ruled out for offside.

"There was a lesson to be learnt that if you become complacent in this league, you are going to lose," said Alty boss Heathcote. "You have to maintain your level of performance for 90 minutes, but, to be fair, the changes I made probably didn't help.

"I have this mindset with John McAliskey that fitness might become an issue after an hour, and I wanted to ease James Smith back in by giving him the last 25 minutes or so.

"But perhaps I should have left things as they were a bit longer, because taking big John off affected our ability to hold the ball up. We allowed them to come on to us far too easily, and the compactness that has been our strength was suddenly missing. We were punished severely for that, and we all felt down and disappointed at the end.

"It was more my fault than they players', but I'm probably not the first manager to get his substitutions wrong!

"It didn't help that we suffered two horrendous decisions.Their equaliser was 100 per cent not a penalty. Even the referee told me he didn't think it was a foul by Shaun Densmore. He admitted he had allowed the linesman to overrule him, and Colin was 100 per cent onside when he scored near the end. You can see the keeper and a defender four yards to the side of the goal are playing him on.

"Over the 90 minutes, we deserved something out of the game, and that would have been a fitting finale, had Colin's goal stood."

Alty are boosted by the news that Anthony Danylyk, Nicky Clee and Smith are all fit for their massive Easter fixtures against Kidderminster at home on Saturday and York away on Monday.