ADAM Castlehouse was scathing in his criticism of his St Austell side as they slipped to another heavy defeat on Saturday.

The Lillywhites manager said he was embarrassed by the performance and accused the players of ‘throwing in towel’ after going 2-0 down in the 72nd minute.

Mason Davis’s 44th minute goal was the only thing that separated the sides as the game went into its fourth quarter – but a superb free-kick from Cash Vinall opened the floodgates.

Davis (79 minutes), Twaine Plummer (83) and Jacob Saunders (90) completed the scoring for the home side.

Castlehouse said: “I’m not sure what to say at the moment. I feel like we’ve made some progress, and things look far more promising, but then we put in a lacklustre performance against a side that quite frankly, I thought were poor too.

“At 1-0, we were very much in the game, and at the start of the second half, we put them under pressure, but our decision-making in the final third was disjointed and panicked.

“They got a dubious free-kick, which changed the momentum of the game after their striker finished well directly from it, and then we sulked, threw in the towel, and very much stopped playing.

“I’m disappointed, embarrassed, and frustrated by the display, and some harsh words will have to be exchanged between me and my players as things have to change and fast.

“We cannot keep making the same mistakes and not learning from them.”

This was the Lillywhites’ seventh straight league defeat, where they have conceded 40 goals in the process.

ST AUSTELL: Mike Williams, Sonny Cooper, Lewie Rendle, Theo Roberts, Billy Coton, Matt Pilkington, Owen Mills, Carlton Allen, Jacob Hobson, George Davey, Sam Lang. Subs: Archie Collings, Alex Hassell, Billy Eccles, Leo Oxford.