Caretaker boss Steve Hodge knew that a difficult second 45 awaited Notts County away at Coventry City and that turned out to be the case.
Ahead of the interval, Danny Haynes’ high boot on Jordan Clarke saw him dismissed and the Magpies faced an uphill battle against a side that had remained unbeaten throughout October.
Hodge was pleased with the first half on the whole but felt that Notts never gave up.
“You’re not going to go there and dominate Coventry they’ve won nine games out of 14 and they’ve got some good players,” he told Magpie Player.
“I thought that spirit-wise and organisation-wise we were decent in the first half.
“You come in at half time at 0-0 happy, but we didn’t have 11 men on the field unfortunately.”
He continued: “Danny’s obviously very flat about the situation and I think he has a three-game ban so it’s not good for him personally as well.
“It was a tough second half for the lads that were out there against a good team.
“They scored an early goal and it made it even worse, but in the last half an hour we showed a bit of spirit about us.
“You can sometimes get beat in those games when you’ve got 10 men five or six nil.
“We’ll all regroup on Monday and start again.”
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