HEREFORD United manager Graham Turner has given his backing to Matt Baker after the goalkeeper was beaten by a 45-yard effort in the shock 3-2 home defeat against Margate.

Turner described Margate's second goal from Phil Collins as a 'total freak' and admitted that he had never witnessed a goal like that before at any level of football.

He said: "When the ball was in the air, the Margate bench were berating the player for aimlessly launching the ball forward. I stopped looking at the flight of the ball because it had gone into orbit and I thought it was flying out of the ground. When I looked back I could not believe it when the ball hit the bottom of the net. When you have that kind of misfortune, and you have played only 19 minutes, you already know that it's not going to be your day."

Turner said: "It's no good blaming someone like Matt Baker for the defeat because he's the same player who made two magnificent saves from penalties in the last two away matches, which gave us a chance of salvaging something. Unfortunately, we didn't get anything from those games because other players did not take advantage of those excellent saves."

Turner said that he had no complaints about the attitude and commitment from his players, despite Saturday's damaging loss.