WEYMOUTH boss Bobby Wilkinson believes the Terras should have beaten St Albans after a second-half “onslaught” in their 2-1 National League South defeat.

St Albans scored a goal in each half through Dylan Fage and Gio Rasulo to go 2-0 up before a tactical switch turned the tide in Weymouth’s favour.

Tom Bearwish’s near-post header halved the deficit but the skipper later saw a penalty saved by Michael Johnson and St Albans withstood a barrage of late attacks to take three points.

Despite the opening-day loss, Weymouth are in 15th, their highest league position since the 2021/22 campaign.

Wilkinson told Echosport: “We should’ve won the game in the second half, it was an absolute onslaught.

READ MORE: St Albans 2-1 Weymouth - report

“It was a game of two halves, the first half everyone was cagey and sussing each other out.

“Then second half we were just very, very good. How we’ve not got a point or won the game, it’s a tough one to take.”

Touching on the missed penalty, a hindrance to the Terras last season and one which resulted in three different penalty takers, Wilkinson refused to blame Bearwish for the defeat.

He said: “We had another six clear-cut chances after that, we’ve got to take them.

“It’s quite weird, it was a brilliant performance but the only downer was we didn’t take a point or win the game.

“We should’ve won. You score the penalty, you win. That’s happened a couple of times since I’ve been here. Like I’ve said to Tom, he’s been brilliant all pre-season.

“If we miss them, we get on with it and go again. As a group, we were just fantastic.

“I wouldn’t have been (surprised) if we’d have walked off 5-2 in the second half, we were that good.

“That came from all their management team, their board of directors. We were electric in the second half.”

Wilkinson did acknowledge mistakes and aspects to improve, mostly in defensive regions.

He said: “We started slow and I’m not very happy with their goal. One ball down the middle and a flick over Gez’s head. That’s something we need to work on.

“There’s a lot to work on but more positives than negatives.”

Wilkinson received a yellow card for what he claimed was simply saying “referee” twice.

The incident was one of a high number of cautions during the game, with neither side believing the match to have been played in bad spirit.

The FA have this season introduced a ‘participant charter’ giving officials the power to hand out robust punishments for what they deem to be confrontational behaviour.

Two or more players surrounding a referee confrontationally will also result in a yellow card and a report to the FA.

Wilkinson said: “I got booked for saying: ‘Referee, referee’. They’re going to upset a lot of people, it’s a farce.

“They’re doing this new thing and the referee was so far below par, it was a joke. I said to him: ‘Could you not just have spoken to me and told me not to shout ‘referee’ twice?’

“Then, I wouldn’t have. He said it’s the new rules. You’re not allowed to approach them.

“Teddy Howe got booked for a foul throw but he thought he was time-wasting. We’re 2-1 down, how does that work?

“You’re going to see this happen. I don’t want to moan about referees but they’ve got to be better than what it was. We got five bookings and I can honestly say I didn’t see a booking in the game.”

Weymouth host Dartford, beaten in last season’s play-offs, on Saturday (3pm).