The Paul Mullin Column

THERE was no excitement for me in Saturday night's FA Cup draw - I didn't even want to see it!

Losing to Leigh blighted the whole weekend and it was a relief I hadn't arranged to go out on Saturday night because the last thing I felt like doing was socialising.

And from other people's points of view, you're not the best person to be around either.

I'm just glad that I've got three kids to keep me on my toes on a Sunday because it stops me moping around thinking about the defeat.

There's no doubt that Leigh deserved to win, but on paper I think we have the better players - we just didn't perform on the day.

So that was the FA Cup dream over for another year and we were gutted for the club more than anything because we know from last year what a run means to them.

That was why it was such a quiet dressing room afterwards and at the end of the day, it was a game that we couldn't take any positives from whatsoever.

The same can't be said of the LDV Vans Cup tie with Oldham though.

Okay, we went out of a second cup in four days but there were plenty of signs to suggest we can get that winning habit back.

In fact, I'm at a loss to explain how we lost that game. Me missing a late chance didn't help, of course, but it was just a mad 20 minutes that cost us.

I couldn't really see them scoring because of the way we were controlling the game and we have to take a lot of credit for that because it's a side two leagues above us.

It also showed that we are doing the right things in training, it's just down to the players when they are on the pitch.

There's nothing the manager can do once we are out there, we have to look at ourselves and we are determined to get it right against Exeter on Saturday.

But the bad run has to end some time, because we can't keep losing.