Jimmy Quinn felt his side could have won at Exeter City and is looking for an improved performance.

The home side took the lead through Jamie Mackie in the 11th minute and it was not until the second half that United got to grips with the game and once again came from behind. Scott Rendell headed home his fourth goal in as many games to level the scores, and the young striker had a golden opportunity to win the game in the dying minutes.

Speaking afterwards, Quinn admitted, "We were poor in the first half, to be honest. Exeter won their individual battles, and when you come away from home it's all about doing your jobs and getting the better of the man you're up against, and we didn't do that today.

"Michael Morrison had a fantastic game I thought - fantastic defending - but to be fair I couldn't praise too many others at half-time. But the character is there again and I said to them at half-time 'we're only one goal down, we've come from behind before, but we have to go out there and express ourselves and stamp our authority on the game'.

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"We were watching the play and letting things happen instead of making it happen. When we started to make things happen and started to get dangerous balls in and around their box we looked threatening.

"But I was disappointed we didn't get the three points today," he added.

"That was a great chance at the end and you really do need to focus when you get chances like that and put it in the back of the net, because sometimes away from home you don't get a lot of chances so you have to take advantage of what you get. We were a little bit slack on our first touch there and it could have been so much better.

"We're still unbeaten, which is a fantastic run, and it gives us something to build on for next week, but we're looking for a lot better than that performance."

Although United were poor in the first half, Quinn paid credit to Exeter for contributing to that performance: "I think we were slow to get going but that was probably more to do with what Exeter were doing than what we weren't doing.

"They were coming off the back of a decent result the other night away at Oxford and they played on the front foot. They've got some decent players and they'll beat a lot of teams, both home and away, and I fully expect them to be there or thereabouts at the end of the season.

"We came down here last season and got beaten, although there was a refereeing decision involved in the first goal, but we showed a lot of character again today and if you can pick up points away from home and your home form is good then you won't be far away at the the end of it.

"Again, it's a long way to come, we were six hours in a coach again yesterday and it was sweltering hot here today, and I'm not making excuses but when you look at all those circumstances I think it's a fantastic point and it's something for the fans to hold on to for next week.

"We've come here and we've done the job, we could have done a little bit better, but we've got a home game next week against Crawley and we'll focus on that to try to get three points."

Quinn was delighted to see Scott Rendell notch another vital goal and believes there is more to come from the young striker: "He's done tremendously well. He's still a little bit raw at times and we'll work with him - he just needs a little injection of pace in his game at times - but he's willing to work hard.

"I was going to put young Robbie Willmott on until Gavin Hoyte told us his calf had tightened up again, so we'll have a closer look at that because it might be coming from his lower back area. Greg will assess that over the next couple of days.

"I was going to play three up front at the end and put little Robbie on the right hand side for his pace, so he was a little unfortunate not to get on today."

He was also pleased to see Mark Convery continue his comeback by playing the final 30 minutes of the match, and added, "I thought he did well. He's got a cool head in the middle of the park and he played some decent balls and kept possession for us and used his experience, which is what we were probably lacking in the first half."

In conclusion, the U's manager commented, "I was very disappointed in their goal. We have all the information in the reports, the lad is right-footed and he's cut back on his right foot and we've let him have a free shot so for me we slipped up and probably didn't do the job as well as we should have done.

"It gives you a bit of a mountain to climb but again we've shown the character to bounce back and possibly could have won it."

[Match report] [Fixture list] [League table]


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