BEN Garratt says Burton Albion gave it everything on Saturday after an early goal and a red card sent Wigan Athletic on the way to victory at the DW Stadium.
The Brewers fell behind early with a crisp finish from James McClean putting the hosts in front.
And minutes later, Jonny Smith was sent off for a high foot on Latics defender Curtis Tilt - who would go on to score a superb long-range effort in the second half to put Wigan 2-0 up.
That killed off any hope Albion had of hanging in at 1-0 with 10 men and hoping to take a point - but Brewers goalkeeper Garratt felt his side put a real shift in defensively in response to that early dismissal for Smith.
“It’s obviously disappointing to concede reasonably early on again, it puts us on the back foot,” admitted Garratt.
“Obviously the decision goes against us with the sending off and we’ve made it hard for ourselves.
“Credit to the lads, we dug in and put a really difficult shift in, but the lad (Tilt) has put a great strike in, to be fair to him.
“I thought we kept going, it was a difficult afternoon but we didn’t give up and kept going right to the end.
"If it’s still 0-0 we’ve got something to defend still but we still felt we were in the game, we just needed to hang in there.
“When that second one went in, it was always an uphill task from there.”
For Garratt, the aim now is to turn all attentions forward to our Emirates FA Cup first round clash at the weekend, where we take on Fleetwood Town at Highbury Stadium.
This will come just a few weeks after Albion took a 1-0 win at Fleetwood in the league - and Garratt says the Brewers will take plenty of belief into that game.
“We’re professionals and we’ve got to take it on the chin and move forward,” said Garratt.
“Things like this happen in football but we’ll pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and go again.
“It’s still fresh in our minds, the (last) Fleetwood game, so we’ll go there full of belief.
“Obviously everyone looks forward to the FA Cup - it’s massive for us and hopefully we can pick up a win and have a run in the competition.”