Hargreaves happy with display

Chris Hargreaves praised his Torquay side's display despite slipping closer to the Skrill Premier with a 1-0 loss to Scunthorpe.

A 1-0 defeat to Scunthorpe - the Gulls' fourth successive defeat by that scoreline - leaves them 10 points adrift of safety with only five games left. Torquay had chances to hit back after Sam Winnall opened the scoring from the spot, missing a penalty of their own when Dale Tonge's effort was saved by Sam Slocombe. The frustration boiled over in stoppage time as Jayden Stockley was sent off for a foul on David Mirfin. But Hargreaves had nothing but positives to say about his side. He said: "I thought we were excellent in the first half, by far the better team and started really well. "But obviously we gave away a penalty which was really disappointing when we were in the ascendancy and playing some really front foot stuff. "And you have got to score when you are on top - we missed a penalty, which was the best chance for us to get back into the game. "Second half they changed because they couldn't handle what we were doing. It stopped us a little bit in our tracks. "The sending off at the end didn't help but again it's another debatable one. "I was very, very pleased with a lot of the game but very disappointed with the result." Hargreaves refused to blame Tonge for his penalty miss. "Dale Tonge was the confident one, usually the person who goes and grabs the ball for a penalty and wants it is the one who is confident he is going to score and he didn't so, again, we move on," he said.