IRVINE Victoria coach Peter Campbell slammed the "slow, sloppy and sluggish" start which left his team's promotion bid hanging in the balance on Saturday.

Vics went into Saturday's home clash with lowly Vale of Leven knowing that victory would keep their bid to win a place in the top three of the West of Scotland Football League's Third Division in their own hands.

But goals from Martin Connolly and Ryan Hynes had the Millburn Park men 2-0 up inside the first 20 minutes - and despite a second half onslaught, there was no way back for Vics, who finished up on the wrong end of a 3-0 defeat after Hynes added his second of the afternoon in the dying moments.

Speaking to the club's own social media team after the game, Campbell said he expected better after last week's stalemate at Dalry Thistle.

He said: “If I said last week it wasn’t good enough, I don’t know what this week was.

“We didn’t offer enough in the first half. We gave them two goals – poor goals to concede from our point of view.

“I think we had three attempts at clearing the first one, and they end up scoring from it four minutes in

"It seemed to knock the wind out our sails. Everything we touched after that, it was sloppy we couldn’t string passes together.

“After last week, the players spoke for a good while about how they were going to go forward.

"Today we’ve gone 1-0 down four minutes in, and then we’ve looked as if that was us out of the game already.”

The Vics offered a lot more in the second half and struck the woodwork or had efforts cleared off the line more than half a dozen times - but Vale held out and put the icing on their cake with Hynes' second late on.

Now Campbell just hopes his side can address their issues and get back on form - before it's oo late.

The coach added: “We hit the bar four or five times in the second half, and you’re looking to them thinking maybe it’s not going to be your day, but it’s disappointing from our point of view.

“Collectively, the players and the management, it’s disappointing for all of us because we know we can offer more.

“We had been up until recently. After Christmas, we came back, we had a few good results, and since then we just can’t seem to pick it back up again.

“In the first half we’re starting really slow, really sloppy, sluggish – we have to address that.”

Irvine Victoria are back in action on Wednesday as they travel to fellow promotion hopefuls Larkhall Thistle - with both sides viewing three points as a must to keep their chances of securing a place in the Second Division alive.

Kick-off is at 7.15pm.