Head coach Tonda Eckert says Southampton must become more resilient after nearly completely unravelling in the second half of their FA Cup win at League One strugglers Doncaster.
Both sides came into Saturday’s third-round tie winless in six, but Saints looked set for a rare straightforward afternoon as Cameron Bragg, Cameron Archer and Kuryu Matsuki scored before half-time.
But Southampton rarely do things the easy way and, a week after conceding four in the second half at Middlesbrough, they were shook by Matty Pearson and Jordan Gibson shortly after the break.
On-loan debutant Daniel Peretz’s superb stoppage-time double save secured the visitors a 3-2 win and a place in the fourth round, but boss Eckert knows improvements are needed.
“Onto the next round, it’s a very special competition,” the Saints boss said.
“I think if you go down in a game, then you have nothing to lose, and then you just throw everything forward.
“We know that we need to deal with that better at the beginning of the second half, but if I look at the whole game I think we deserve to pass this round and then let’s hope that we get a home game next time.”
Asked what sparked the stark second-half dip, Eckert said: “To be fair, I think there’s a story that repeats itself. I mean, we’ve had those games before where we go 3-0 up at half-time.
“We talked about one thing only at half-time and that is we need to come out strong, how important the first five minutes are, and we concede after a corner after 48 minutes.
“You can always in every game concede on a set piece, but we just need to make sure that we deal with those setbacks in a more resilient way.
“That, for me, is a theme that we see, and we just need to make sure that we improve that.”
Saints return to action at home to Hull next weekend, while Doncaster host Fleetwood in the Vertu Trophy on Tuesday buoyed by an impressive performance against Championship opposition.
Rovers boss Grant McCann said: “I thought they were much better than us first half – played with more intensity, more aggression, more tempo.
“Obviously we gave them a couple of goals, which doesn’t help, but second half I think it was reversed. I thought we were better than them.
“We looked more aggressive and were unlucky probably not to take the game to extra time with the opportunities we had.”
