A disappointed Justin Edinburgh believed Leyton Orient deserved more than they got for their second-half performance after seeing their hopes of the non-league double dashed by a 1-0 defeat at the hands of AFC Fylde in the FA Trophy final at Wembley.

The National League champions were below-par in the first half, but they struck the woodwork three times after the break and were left cursing their luck when Matt Harrold inadvertently got in the way of a Jordan Maguire-Drew effort that was destined to cancel out what proved to be a match-winning free-kick from Danny Rowe.

The O’s head coach said: “When you arrive here you are focused on solely one thing, to make sure you leave here winners. It’s not a nice feeling.

“It was a slow start but we certainly deserved a little bit more than we got for our second-half performance, I thought we were very good. Congratulations to Fylde, they were worthy winners and we wish them all the best for next year.”

Reflecting on the chances that got away, a rueful Edinburgh said: “We’ve hit the woodwork a few times but I think the one where I’ve stood there and thought it’s perhaps not our day was when Matt Harrold unfortunately cleared Jordan Maguire-Drew’s effort off the line.

“I’m proud of the football club, I’m proud of my players, they’ve been incredible all season and the fans again today. The numbers that we’ve been backed by is quite incredible.

“We accomplished the goal to get back into the Football League, obviously this was the next to try and complete the double and it hasn’t worked that way. The players are hurting but they have to take a lot of credit for the season they’ve had.”

Orient came into the game off the back of a three-week break since securing promotion against Braintree Town. Their opponents, by contrast, returning to Wembley eight days after losing 3-0 to Salford City in the play-off final.

Edinburgh had “no doubt” the long lay-off affected his players in the first half and remarked: “I thought we were ring rusty, we didn’t find our legs.

“Credit to Fylde. I came last week and it looked a nervous performance but they certainly got that out of their system and credit to them to show the character they did and come here today and win it.

“My positive was that we got in 0-0 because we could have been behind, but once we did we reassessed and just calmed the players. They were disappointed with their performance, but we understood that would be possible that we didn’t start well, but as the game went on we grew into it and I do believe we were worthy of taking the game to extra-time, there’s no doubt about that.”