Worthing FC head for FA Cup derby with boss telling players: Be more ruthless

They were unable to clinch a National League South win at home to Hemel Hempstead last weekend despite putting 33 crosses into the area and having huge amounts of possession. See pictures from the match here.

It finished 1-1 and they would have come away pointless but forJoel Colbran’s late equaliser.

And Hinshelwood said the game had shown up lessons they needed to learn – starting in Saturday’s Cup second qualifying round trip to National South rivals Eastbourne Borough.

It’s the 12th year in a row Worthing have started their FA Cup run against a side from the same level as them or higher and Hinshelwood said it would be fantastic for the whole club if they could get through.

Reflecting on the Hemel draw which left the Rebels third in the table, Hinshelwood said: “We played some good football and got the ball into the final third regularly and had 33 crosses, yet were 1-0 down with ten minutes to go.

"They got into our box only three or four times and you’d have looked at all the stats and asked ‘how could it have finished 1-1?’ But what that shows is we need to be more ruthless in both boxes.

"It happened in spells last season too – we need more of a cutting edge. But there were lots of good things too. Between the boxes we played nice football.”

Hinshelwood took a strong side to Littlehampton Town for a friendly on Tuesday evening to boost fitness levels of players returning from injury.

Jake Robinson, Kane Wills and Cam Tutt were among those to get useful game time and the match – which they won 2-1 – has given the manager some selection posers for Saturday’s Priory Lane Cup tie.

"It’s good to see a number of players getting close to full fitness and we have options for Eastbourne,” he said.

"We really want to do well in the FA Cup but it will be a tough tie – we never seem to get a slightly easier one!

"We’ve had some good battles with Borough since being promoted and this should be another in a cracking atmosphere.”