Dover Athletic manager Jake Leberl bemoans first-half display in opening-day 3-2 National League South defeat against AFC Totton

Boss Jake Leberl felt Dover were as bad as he could remember in the first half of their opening-day National League South loss to fellow newly-promoted team AFC Totton on Saturday.

Goals from Christos Batzelis, Brandon Haunstrup and Ralph Vigrass left last campaign’s Isthmian Premier play-off victors chasing the game after a dismal opening 45 minutes on their Step 2 return.

While Whites striker George Nikaj bagged a second-half brace, his second setting up a grandstand finale, it wasn’t enough for Leberl’s team, beaten 3-2 in front of a 759-strong crowd at Crabble.

There was little doubt as to where the blame lied for Dover’s first defeat of the new competitive campaign.

On their first-half display, Leberl said: “I was so disappointed, really disappointed.

“It looked like we had been on the coach for six hours, stuck in traffic and arriving late, rather than them!

“I thought we started the game as badly as I can remember. It looked like the boys were thinking it was a pre-season game.

Report: Dover 2-3 AFC Totton

“It just felt like pre-season with the atmosphere where, obviously, there wasn’t many here and there was no intensity.

“We started so badly - wrong decisions, not winning first contacts and getting bullied and, deservedly, went in 3-0 down. What was pleasing was we had a bit of fight in the second half.

“I felt the substitutes came on and made an impact, and there’s food for thought there. But I don’t think we can play as badly as that in 45 minutes.

“We didn’t in the latter part of last season and it was the same boys that finished the last three games when we were incredible in regards to the spirit, the will-power and the desire.

“To lack that - for a manager and as an individual as a player - is