Manager Jay Saunders issued an apology to Tonbridge’s fans after their FA Cup run ended in emphatic fashion at home to lower-division Harborough Town on Saturday.

National League South Angels were slight favourites for the first-round tie - a match which attracted a record crowd of 3,132 at Longmead - but it was Harborough who ran out comfortable 4-1 victors.

Asked if he had a message for the club’s supporters, Saunders replied: “I’d like to give an apology because we knew how much it meant to everyone.

“I had a chat at the end with a supporter, who was disappointed and sort of let his feelings be known. I said to him that no one will hurt more than us as a management team and players.

“It was a big day for us, a big day for the players, and we have come up short. But just stick by us.

“Things like that can happen in the cup and, unfortunately, today, it has happened to us.”

Experienced defender Paul Malone gave the visitors a half-time lead and 10-goal top scorer Ben Stephens netted twice to effectively seal Harborough’s progress.

Report: Tonbridge 1-4 Harborough

Substitute Dan Forbes appeared to wrap it up late on with a fourth and, although below-par Angels did score from skipper Sean Shields’ stoppage-time deflected shot, the day belonged to the Southern League Premier Division Central side.

“I’d said to the boys they were better without the ball,” revealed Saunders. “I don’t mean that disrespectfully in any way.

“They’re dangerous from set-pieces but they’re better without the ball in that, when you commit bodies forward, they break really well.

“If you look at the goals and how they went in, we play a ball across the box and Jason Adigun goes close. Then, they go down the other end and we try to play out, and Jamie Fielding tries to clip a ball out to Naz (Nazir Bakrin) from a goal kick. From that, we give them an opportunity to put a ball into our box.

“They have two long throws and that leads to a corner, and they score from a corner. You go in at half-time, feeling you have had enough of the ball, without really hurting them, although Shieldsy had a good shot in the first half.

“In the second half, again, every time we put a cross into the box, they broke.

“I thought the lad up top, Riley O’Sullivan, was excellent for them. He caused our back three so many problems and they didn’t get a grip of him all day. Fair play to the lad.

“Taking nothing away from Harborough, they have come here and done a job.

“But we have got to be better in both boxes. The amount of good balls we put into the box, we never really got on the end of them.

“At the other end, we had a few that have had off-days and, to be fair, it’s hard because they have been very good of late and this season. But they have had off-days on a day where you don’t want them to have it.

“It’s a blow.”

Saunders also accepted he may have got his starting line-up wrong as he explained a double half-time change that saw forward Trevan Robinson and wing-back Tariq Hinds replace winger Jason Adigun and right-sided defender Crossley Lema.

“Jason picked up a needless booking,” he explained. “They were just trying to get him sent-off, which you do. I felt we needed to go two up top and get Trev on.

“I felt we could do that because we were in control of the midfield area so I didn’t think we needed that extra midfielder so we wanted to get an extra forward on.

“Trev came on and actually did quite well. I just don’t think we got the ball down the side quickly enough.

“With the second change, I just felt Cross wasn’t offering enough on the ball. Tariq offers us a bit more on the ball, a bit higher up, and that was the reason behind that one.

“I’ll take it on the chin. I think there’s a few today that I got wrong. I went with size because of their physicality.

“But it’s easy to say now. I went with what I thought would be good enough to win that game and, at the end of the day, I’m the manager.

“The buck stops with me.”

With only one step of the football pyramid separating the sides, victory for either side would not really have been a major upset.

But it was more the comprehensive nature of the final scoreline which stunned Tonbridge fans, with a gutted Saunders saying it will take him a while to get over their cup exit.

“In the FA Cup, there’s always shocks,” he said. “You only need to look at Friday night, with Tamworth beating Huddersfield. It’s what the FA Cup is about.

“I think it’s a shock because it’s not often where you have more possession and concede four goals! That doesn’t happen very often.

“Today, we have had a lot of the ball. You can have all the ball in the world but, if you’re not clinical with it, [it means little]. We have been like that of late.

“If you look at the first 30 minutes against Dorking (in a 1-0 win), we were very good - but we had a chance to kill it off - and we didn’t do it. When you’re on top and we did have a lot of the ball in the first half, you have to go in front.

“If you don’t, it invites the other team out.”

Angels, sitting 13th, will return to league matters at fifth-placed Torquay next weekend.