Darryl Westlake gutted by defeat

Darryl Westlake today admitted he was "devastated" after battling Walsall ended pointless against Bournemouth – but insisted they must be ruthless.

The Saddlers' four game unbeaten run was popped by the Cherries' 1-0 win on Saturday – to leave them second bottom and five points from League One safety.

Andy Butler and Jon Macken were denied by Shwan Jalal while Jason Price hit the bar in the first half.

Matt Richards' free-kick clattered off the underside of the bar in injury time and Westlake felt the Saddlers deserved a point but wasted too many chances.

He said: "It was devastating not to see it go in at the end, especially after all our hard work but we've got to take our chances.

"We were the better team and it was a poor goal to give away but we had chances ourselves and maybe we should have taken them.

"They are second in the league but we felt we were the better team so we should have won the game. We can't get too down on ourselves though, we need to pick ourselves up and beat Dagenham.

"We feel we played well, we'll take the positives and take them into Dagenham tomorrow.

"We played poorly before the new manager but since he's come in we've all lifted our heads and started playing well."

But the 19-year-old agreed with boss Dean Smith and captain Andy Butler that the Saddlers were on the wrong end of referee David Foster's decisions.

Westlake said: "It's hard to say but there were times when the referee made bad decisions, before the goal he said it came off my foot but it came off theirs and they scored from the corner."

Frustrations boiled over after the final whistle as Julian Gray and Liam Feeney squared up but Westlake played it down.

He added: "I don't tend to get involved but it was people just getting frustrated because we didn't win."