Theo Archibald thought Forest Green’s display at Lincoln was one of their best performances of the season despite the 2-1 defeat.

Rovers dominated for large parts of the game at Sincil Bank on Saturday and will feel hard done by not to have come away with a result.

Archibald came back into the side and starred for Rovers on the right flank. The winger has ranked the performance as one of Rovers’ strongest and feels that makes the defeat even more frustrating.

“It was probably one of our best performances of the season which is why it’s disappointing not to come away with any points, especially against the table toppers,” said Archibald.

“It’s bittersweet when you’re the better team and come away with zero points but if you do come away with zero points you’d rather do it knowing you played the way you know you can so the overriding feeling is disappointment but if we can play like that I’m sure we’ll win more than we’ll lose.

“I thought we dominated possession, had so many chances but it didn’t break for us.

“I can only count two chances they had, a long ball up field and they end up winning the game so it’s a tough one to take especially against top of the table where we’ve played so well but we’re a strong group and we’ll bounce back.”

Archidald did admit Rovers only had themselves to blame for the goals in which they conceded.

“It’s a game of margins,” he added. “There were two fine margins where we didn’t look after ourselves at the back and a couple of slack mistakes got punished.”

There were over 8,500 packed into Sincil Bank on Saturday and there was a hostile atmosphere given the growing rivalry between the clubs but the Scot felt the team dealt with it well.

“I don’t think we were intimidated,” he commented.

“Quite a lot of the boys played here before and we knew what to expect.

“It’s a really good atmosphere here, they make a good noise, but you can’t let that get to you and you have to make that a positive and we did that.

“I don’t think anyone shied away from the ball we all looked confident and stuck to our game plan and I thought we executed it well we just couldn’t stick the ball in the net.”